Study Guide: The Power and the Glory

Our January 2026 study guide for The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene is now available! This month we explore:

One Does Not Live by Bread Alone: A People's History of the Catholic Church in Mexico

"One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."
— Matthew 4:4

"The Church makes a moral judgment about economic and social matters, 'when the fundamental rights of the person or the salvation of souls requires it.' In the moral order she bears a mission distinct from that of political authorities: the Church is concerned with the temporal aspects of the common good because they are ordered to the sovereign Good, our ultimate end. She strives to inspire right attitudes with respect to earthly goods and in socio-economic relationships."
— Catechism of the Catholic Church (para. 2420)

How did we end up with the Lieutenant?

What historical and cultural events end up creating a person with such a deep conviction that his cold hatred of the Church is right and good?

While the Lieutenant is a fictional character, Graham Greene's narrative setting within the Cristero War was a very real conflict of ideologies that produced significant bloodshed between both pro- and anti-Catholic sides. Though much is made—for good reason—of the exquisite portrait of the Whiskey Priest, the Lieutenant often ends up getting the short end of the stick, typically treated as not much more than a one-dimensional mouthpiece of the socio-political forces behind the persecution of the Church in Mexico during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

But men like the Lieutenant came from somewhere, and it's critical to acknowledge that their motives are at heart not merely economic or political, but moral. Indeed one can argue that every political revolution is a "war of religion," when it comes down to it. Is the temporal life for the sake of the eternal? Or does belief in the eternal render one a slave to the clerics who exercise control via their power to withhold or grant heavenly salvation? Or is it the other way around—does an allegiance to the eternal protect one from exploitation by temporal governments? The fundamental clash of values boils down to everything about how we live, how we spend our time and our money, how we organize our societies, and who gets to exercise power. This is the essence of the war between heaven and earth.

The Legacy of Catholicism in Mexico

To understand the picture that set the stage for the Cristero War and the ideology of the Lieutenant, let's explore a brief history of the complex role of the Catholic Church in Mexico:

European involvement with Mexico began in the early sixteenth century, resulting in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521. The Catholic Church quickly became a dominant institutional power in the region, as the Spanish crown sought to solidify their rule with the inculcation of Christian culture. Various religious orders were enlisted to assist with mass conversion efforts, resulting in the decimation of indigenous languages and cultural practices. The Catholic Church established missions, schools, churches, and hospitals, with aims to alleviate poverty, increase literacy, and evangelize Christianity. The Church's efforts encountered significant cultural resistance, often violently quelled by the Spanish government, as it sought to gain social control over the region by conditioning the population to accept rule under the divine right monarchical legacy of European Christian politics.

From the very beginning, we can already see the devastatingly tragic and multifaceted legacy of Catholicism—on one hand the Spanish conquistadors triumphantly ended the rule of an empire that was so debased in its practice of ritualistic human sacrifice—particularly child sacrifice—and cannibalism, that the preserved writings of the European sailors of that era include horrifying accounts of being overcome with the stench of blood, and the sheer degree of human suffering endured by the native peoples at the hands of their rulers. On the other hand, for many indigenous Mexicans the transition from rule by Aztec emperors to Spanish lords was very much a leap from the frying pan to the fire. Oppression took on a new form, if less bloody then certainly more alien. Control now came from the hands of powerful foreigners imperially imposing new gods, whose high priests were often just as enraptured with power and dehumanization as the ones that came before.

But at this point it's critical to emphasize that there were genuinely faithful missionaries with the best motives. Many Catholic clerics were eager to share the good news of the Gospel, to materially improve the lives of the native peoples of Mexico, and to help them create loving communities grounded on charity and virtue. Many gave their lives to tend to the sick, educate the poor, and join the native communities as brothers in the labor of farming, carpentry, and more. The Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún created the Florentine Codex, a compendium of Aztec history, and social and religious customs, to preserve the ancient heritage of Mesoamericans. Other missionaries sought to incorporate and harmonize the Catholic faith with the cultural practices of the indigenous population via processes of sanctification. For many Catholics who made the dangerous journey to the New World, the goal was to love and serve the newly discovered children of God by bringing them the precious gift of Jesus Christ. Ultimately this was a gift of knowing the dignity and incalculable value of the human person—the antidote to child sacrifice and abuse of the vulnerable, and the key to overcoming the forces of evil.

And yet as had happened in Europe centuries prior, the profoundly absurd irony played itself out in full. The deposit of faith, the Gospel of Jesus Christ—the very key to freedom from slavery—was given to an oppressed population by their oppressors. Christianity came with a variety of political strings attached, as the native population faced a frequently brutal occupation by a foreign military force that sought hegemonic cultural control that erased their way of life while it plundered and exploited both land and life. And chief amongst the enforcers for this conquering regime was the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, frequently guilty of far more than complicity as it lined its coffers with wealth and land as part of the reward for assisting the Spanish crown. The charge against religion as merely a tool of political control was devastatingly accurate in many of the interactions between the people of Mexico and the Catholic Church. Yet despite the forced conversions and the often shocking corruption of the Catholic institutional hierarchy, the truth, beauty, and love of the person of Jesus Christ took root firmly in the hearts of tens of millions of South America. The miraculous apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531 further inflamed this embrace of Christianity, as the Gospel swept through the South Americas.

Once again, conquering forces seeking to use Christianity to solidify their control would find themselves handing the very weapon of their undoing to their victims. The Mexican population grew in health, literacy, cultural identity, and social and economic stability, aided by Catholic social services and the advocacy of many passionate Catholic priests and religious that devoted their lives to the work of spreading the Gospel in the New World.

The Enlightenment and Mexican Independence

Meanwhile back in Europe, this same time period witnessed the emergence of ground-shattering cultural and political changes, as the Protestant Reformation exploded across the continent. The Catholic Church battled to preserve influence in Christendom as nation after nation broke away and formed their own geographically bound denominations. Various rulers awarded themselves absolutist powers, declaring ownership over both crown and crook. Whatever accusations had been levied against the Church regarding the frequent use of faith as an instrument of political control, the Reformation and subsequent Wars of Religion proved that the Catholic hierarchy, despite its many human failings and corruptions, had in fact been a powerful bulwark against such exploitation. Simply put, a separate Church and State guaranteed a separate Church and State. So long as the spiritual power belonged to the Church, it could not be claimed by the State. But after the Reformation, all such restrainers were removed across Europe, including in those lands that remained in communion with the Catholic Church. Faith had become a naked tool of coercion for political ends, and widespread cynical rebellion quickly followed.

By the late sixteenth century, Enlightenment philosophy began setting fires of revolt across Europe. A new breed of thinkers, including René Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, and Baruch Spinoza argued for reason and empiricism over faith and mysticism. Also known as the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment era took direct aim at the necessity of spiritual control altogether. Overthrowing God and King was one and the same, and the growing sentiment proclaimed that if the existence of the spiritual could be denied, then the power of oppressive imperial rule could also be permanently dissolved. Frequently violent and volatile political movements for democratic reforms and independence emerged throughout Europe, fueled on idealistic concepts of human dignity and freedom that were built on the bedrock of Christian anthropology, even as they attacked Christianity itself.

By the early nineteenth century, these Enlightenment ideas found their way to Mexico, with increasing calls for Mexican independence from Spanish rule. The Church was immediately in a precarious position. While many clerics supported the independence movement on Christian human rights grounds, the Church also stood to lose a great deal of political privilege and land holdings. Despite the Church holding a general institutional reluctance to support the Mexican people, individual priests became heroic figures for the revolution. Fr. Miguel Hidalgo's famous ringing of the church bells in the city of Dolores in September of 1810, known as the Grito de Dolores, was a call to arms against Spanish occupation, triggering the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence. Other clerical figures supported the independence efforts with calls to abolish slavery and redistribute land holdings.

The Wheat and the Weeds

When Mexico won its independence in 1821, the government quickly began to wrestle with the complicated and messy legacy of the Catholic Church, and the future of its ongoing presence in the country. On one hand the institution was a holdover of imperial rule—the resented lapdog of the Spanish crown that aided in indoctrinating and culturally controlling the Mexican people, even as much of the bureaucracy was highly corrupt, money-hungry, and disbelieving of their own theological rhetoric. On the other hand, the Church was the guardian of the deposit of faith and the dispenser of the sacraments. The legitimate devotion and faith of the population ran deep. Likewise the Church was an indispensable source of the majority of social services in Mexico, running schools and hospitals and providing significant assistance to poverty stricken areas. The newly formed Mexican government had to wrestle with the same dilemma as many countries in Europe: when one is talking about the "Catholic Church," what exactly is being referred to? Are we talking about the human-led bureaucracy with all its corruption, flaws, naked grabs at power, hypocrisy, and moral bankruptcy? Or is the Church the deposit of faith, the good news of the Gospel, the earnest shepherds that develop and proclaim the dogmas and doctrines, the teachings, the sacraments, the saints, the truth and beauty of the very person of Jesus Christ?

"Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn."
— Matthew 13:30

The Church is both. And in this world, until the end of time, it can only be both. The wheat and the weeds cannot be separated by human hands. Every attempt to do so has led to either despair over the inability to be rid of the corruption and evil, or else a cynical rejection of God altogether. The history of Christendom and the legacy of Catholicism in the Americas is an ongoing story of societies teetering back and forth as they wrestle with what it looks like for the State to be in right relationship with the Church.

The Mexican government strained under this teetering, eager to cut off the tentacles of the political power of the Church even as it faced the rebellion of its own population that sought to protect the lifegiving faith that was the source of their courage and wisdom in the first place. In 1824, the Mexican Constitution attempted to issue an uneasy compromise that affirmed Catholicism as the national religion, but created several provisions for religious tolerance. In response to both the political maneuvering of the Church as well as growing liberal ideology, the 1850s saw a series of increased governmental restrictions against the power of the Church, including the nationalization of Church properties, and the development of a comprehensive secular national education system. The Church resisted, participating in a series of conflicts known as the Reform Wars, resulting in even more restrictions against it in the public sphere. By 1917, the Church's attempts to retain political leverage against growing secularization resulted in a new Constitution that banned clerical dress in public, restricted the number of priests permitted in the country, and closed a number of Catholic schools.

Viva Cristo Rey

In response, a grassroots movement among faithful Catholics emerged, known as the Cristero Army. Their banner, "Viva Cristo Rey," (Long Live Christ the King) was a battle cry in defense of the faith. By 1926, the Cristero War had fully broken out, resulting in three years of brutal atrocities against both sides, including the torture and martyrdom of St. Jose Sanchez Del Rio. The fourteen year old boy was captured by the Mexican army, who cut off the bottom of his feet and forced him to march to a cemetery site, slashing him with a machete while he prayed the rosary and alternately cried out in pain and shouted "Viva Cristo Rey!" He was murdered at the cemetery on February 10th, 1928.

The secular government, long proclaiming to fight for the people against the oppression of the Spanish regime and the institutional coercion of their lapdog Church, now starkly stood against their own people. The Catholic faith was no longer an imposed tool of spiritual indoctrination to accept foreign rule, but a vibrant and distinctly homegrown foundation of the culture of the Mexican peoples. To attack the Church was to attack one's own kin and culture.

And yet—the cruelty, the colonization, the erasure of indigenous culture and ways of life, the exploitation and forced servitude, all the harms of the imperial regime that the Church helped to uphold could not be ignored. The foundation of the faith was fractured with deep wounds of alienation and resentment intermingled with fervent devotion to Jesus Christ and the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

What does a culture do with a faith that comes from the hands of those who dehumanize and oppress, who seem to not be remotely connected to or even cognizant of the beautiful gift of Christ that they toss at their victims, blind to the precious pearls? How can something so good, beautiful, and true possibly come from those who were largely devoid of that very beauty? Add to this the fact that the beautiful faith itself is the source of all the grace and courage that an oppressed people need to overthrow their chains. Without it, how can that freedom be sustained? What do you do with a gift that is so tainted by the sins of the giver? What does it mean to be a Catholic and a Mexican? How do these identities exist at peace together?

In the horrific violence of the Cristero Wars, this ambivalence over morality, freedom, and identity was the crux of the trauma. Both sides held claim to the Mexican identity, both sides held claim to the moral right. Both claimed to offer true freedom, with the deepest convictions.

The Lieutenant and the Priest

And that bloody, painful history is how you end up with both the Lieutenant as well as the Whiskey Priest.

By the time these two nameless characters finally have their direct encounter, they have come to fully embody their philosophies. The result is a conversation that is less between two human beings, and more between two archetypes of the fractured Mexican soul. The real war in the end is not between Church and State, but within the hearts of the Mexican people themselves. In The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene creates a character in the Lieutenant that levies every charge of how Christianity has harmed and fundamentally altered the Mexican identity, directly confronting a guilt-ridden, broken, sinful representation of the faith that the Whiskey Priest can hardly defend, but all the more so cannot abandon. In the end the Lieutenant is wrong—not in his accusations of corruption and harm of the temporal Church, but in his conviction that the soul can continue to fight for itself without knowing, loving, and serving the source of its existence and dignity. This can never be, and Christ triumphs the moment that we try and fail to kill the truth written in our hearts.

It is impossible to unlearn Jesus Christ, or remove Christianity from one's cultural identity, either individually or collectively. The character of the Lieutenant himself is a product of the legacy of the Catholic faith.

Today the world continues to collectively wrestle with the complicated legacy of colonialism, imperialism, and Christianity. These events are often violent and wrenching, and there is no end in sight. In the aftermath, many cultures all around the world must resolve for themselves how to reclaim their identity in Jesus Christ in a way that is no longer hostage to the wounds inflicted during the passing of the gift. It is a tall order, and worth praying that we end up with fewer Lieutenants, and more saints.

Discussion Questions

1. The wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13:30) cannot be separated by human hands. How do we live with this reality—loving the Church while acknowledging the real wounds caused by corrupt Church officials? What does faithful criticism of the Church look like?

2. The Whiskey Priest remains faithful despite his sins and struggles, while the other priest apostatizes, marries, and collaborates with the government. What do you think Greene is showing us through the flip in faithfulness of these two priests in times of acceptance vs persecution.

3. St. Jose Sanchez del Rio faced torture and death shouting "Viva Cristo Rey!" How does his witness of joy and courage in the midst of persecution inspire us today? What enables a person to love Christ so deeply that even suffering becomes a witness to hope?

4. Throughout the novel, the Whiskey Priest never tries to stop drinking, never prays for help with his personal sins, and even admits to the sin of despair without repenting. Yet he faithfully fulfills his priestly duties, dies a martyr, and goes to heaven. Do you think Graham Greene's portrayal demonstrates an understanding of what saves us? Is this an accurate exploration of personal virtue vs faithfulness in service.

5. Many of us read this novel from places of relative safety and religious freedom, while others among us may have experienced real persecution. How does our context, whether safe or dangerous, shape how we understand this story? What can we learn from each other about faithfulness in different circumstances?