The Power And The Glory Essay, Research Paper
As infinite people in a 3rd universe state autumn to the depredations of poorness and disease, a individual adult female battles to do a difference. Populating a Spartan life, through conditions far from humane, she helps those who are hapless, enduring and ill, with entire neglect for her ain personal comfort. One might state that this adult female is a saint and for many she already is. Her altruistic wantonness to assist those in demand makes her virtuous to a epic grade. Her name is Mother Theresa. By blunt contrast, the whisky priest can barely be classified as a saint. A saint is an single unusually free from human failings. The whisky priest nevertheless, is the incarnate of human weaknesss: a evildoer.
Priests are well-thought-of members of their communities and should represent what it is to be a Christian. They are exemplary citizens who pattern the instructions of Christ and take on the duties of their rubric. Under the fortunes of an anti-clerical purging in the southern provinces of Mexico, it is apprehensible that the whisky priest is unable to execute all of his hieratic responsibilities for fright of his life. To last, he must lie, darnel and bargain to avoid the jurisprudence. These tactics nevertheless, are non new to him. Even before the purging, he is a priest that is barely good and honest. By necessitating a fee for services such as baptism, at a monetary value of two pesos a caput, he is no better that the common stealer. Families that can barely set nutrient on the tabular array are asked to pay for a service that should be given, non sold. The fees for his services are most frequently directed to luxuries such as brandy, his personal favourite.
As a adult male whose naming is to function the people, the whisky priest does nil but serve himself. When the villagers ask the priest to hear their confessions, he unwillingly complies. He is compelled merely by his sense of responsibility and angrily responds, & # 8220 ; Oh allow them come. Let them all come, I am your servant. & # 8221 ; ( p. 45 ) He begins to cry non for their wickednesss, but in commiseration for himself. He does non execute his undertakings gracefully but feels that they are a job imposed on him. A priest & # 8217 ; s responsibilities are non to himself but to God and his neighbors. When the whiskey priest prays, it is merely for his girl and no 1 else. The love that he should experience for every psyche in the universe is egotistically concentrated on the one kid.
The service of a priest is non merely to the people but to all living things. As the whiskey priest returns to the plantation of Captain Fellows, he discovers the abandoned house and the crippled Canis familiaris. Filled with hungriness, the whisky priest avariciously devours the meat, go forthing the clean bone for the hapless Canis familiaris. Surely a retainer of God will non allow the hapless animal travel hungry? His deficiency of commiseration and compassion is rather distur
bing to the reader. The whisky priest is merely concerned about his ain hungriness and ignores that of the Canis familiaris. Man was put on Earth to care for the animals that God had created but the whiskey priest neglects God’s creative activity.
Sins are considered the infirmities of adult male. One might believe that a priest, a holy adult male, has few failings. In the instance of the whisky priest, it is the opposite ; he lives a life in mortal wickedness.
First, he is as the name implies a adult male who drinks in surplus. It is non a wickedness in itself to imbibe, but the agencies by which he obtains it is incorrect. The whisky priest takes the money of his followings to pay for his wont. He lacks the self-denial to halt.
Second, he commits one of the deathly wickednesss ; lecherousness. He lusts for the adult female named Maria. In his desire, the whisky priest interruptions an built-in jurisprudence of the priesthood and commits the wickedness of fornication. To do affairs worse, his action brings a kid into the universe for whom he can non care for. The priest has less deserving than that of the half-caste. The half-caste betrays the priest for money to last where the whiskey priest betrays God for lecherousness.
Third, the whisky priest succumbs to the wickedness of desperation & # 8211 ; the inexcusable wickedness. He falls into desperation even with the cognition that God forgives. The priest is, as a character in the fresh provinces, & # 8216 ; human & # 8217 ; , and as a human portions in its failing.
From a certain position, one could name the whisky priest a sufferer. Refusing to abdicate his naming, lives as a fleeting executing his priestly services wheresoever needed. This is merely what it appears to be. At the decision of the novel, the villagers believe the whisky priest to be worthy of the rubric of sufferer. Unfortunately they merely see the surface of his actions. As the reader reads deeper into the ideas of the priest, the world of the state of affairs becomes clear. The people see a priest put on the lining his life for his beliefs and the well being of the people. The fact of the affair is that he is making it organize himself. It is pride at work, non the love of God. The whisky priest believes himself a all right chap to hold stayed when the others had gone. He believes that a adult male transporting God at the hazard of his ain life is guaranteed a godly wages. It is the priests feeling of high quality and pride that he remains in Mexico. He is a fleeting for all the incorrect grounds and fails to remember that it was pride that made the angels autumn.
The whisky priest is a adult male who does non suit the mold of a saint. He is human and has failings as all do. He is a shame to his career and has forgotten what it means to be a priest. A saint is free of human failing. The whisky priest nevertheless, epitomizes the failings of adult male. He is a evildoer who can merely be redeemed by God.
