Book Review: The Power and the Glory

I recently reread Graham Greene's famous The Power and the Glory, one of my favorite novels. Set in the Mexican state of Tabasco in the 1930s, it describes the struggle between church and state. The main character is an unnamed Roman Catholic whiskey priest facing persecution by the government. Its themes are incredibly powerful and moving, and especially for me, I found the question of duty compelling. The whiskey priest is an immoral drunk, a poor example of religion, and yet he is the only church in the state. Despite his many sins and faults, his sense of duty never wavers. He gives himself entirely to his religion, almost like what physicians do in residency. He is the resident who, after 29 hours of being up in the hospital, responds to a page without fail because that is his duty, the right thing to do. For us, practicing in the House of God, the patient is that sacrifice, and we are the crucible. What does it mean to have such a sense of obligation? What kind of person would be unfailing? How do the people - the patients, the peasants - view such a whiskey priest, such a resident? Even though the story is about a world far from what I know, a world completely different than what we live in today, the themes still resonate strongly.

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