The Power and the Glory

by Graham Greene

But the habit of the confessional reasserted itself: it was as if he were back in the little stuffy wooden boxlike coffin in which men bury their uncleanness with their priest.

He said, ‘Mortal sin … danger … self-control,’ as if those words meant anything at all. He said, ‘Say three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys.’

Suddenly, without warning, with an odd sense of homesickness, he thought of the hostages in the prison yard, waiting at the water-tap, not looking at him—the suffering and the endurance which went on everywhere the other side of the mountains.

Loving God isn’t any different from loving a man—or a child. It’s wanting to be with Him, to be near Him.’ He made a hopeless gesture with his hands. ‘It’s wanting to protect Him from yourself.’

But he couldn’t believe that anyone anywhere would rid him of his heavy heart. Even when he drank he felt bound to his sin by love. It was easier to get rid of hate.

A virtuous man can almost cease to believe in Hell, but he carried Hell about with him.

woke with the sense of complete despair that a man might feel finding the only money he possessed was counterfeit.

What was the good of confession when you loved the result of your crime?

priest thought, I have lost the faculty of judging—that woman in prison may have been the best person there.

smile, stood the half-caste. He was like the small pain that reminds a man of his sickness, or perhaps like the unexpected memory which proves that love after all isn’t dead.

The oddest thing of all was that he felt quite cheerful; he had never really believed in this peace.

It wouldn’t really have been a good dream—that confession in Las Casas when he would have had to admit, as well as everything else, that he had denied confession to a dying man.

Conscience money?’ the schoolmaster said. ‘Yes.’

You don’t need to trouble about me. I’m through.’ ‘You mean damned?’ the priest said angrily. ‘Sure. Damned,’ the man replied, licking blood away from his lips.

‘Listen, father …’ The priest sat hopelessly at the man’s side; nothing would shift that violent brain towards peace: once, hours ago perhaps, when he wrote that message—but the chance had come and gone.

He had heard men talk of the unfairness of a death-bed repentance—as if it was an easy thing to break the habit of a life whether to do good or evil.

The priest hurriedly whispered the words of conditional absolution, in case, for one second before it crossed the border, the spirit had repented, but it was more likely that it had gone over still seeking its knife, bent on vicarious violence. He prayed: ‘O merciful God, after all he was thinking of me, it was for my sake …’ but he prayed without conviction. At the best, it was only one criminal trying to aid the escape of another—whichever way you looked, there wasn’t much merit in either of them.

‘I never believed you would return.’ ‘Oh well, lieutenant, you know how it is. Even a coward has a sense of duty.’

‘You mustn’t think they are all like me.’ He watched the candlelight blink on the bright buttons. He said, ‘There are good priests and bad priests. It is just that I am a bad priest.’

‘Then perhaps we will be doing your Church a service …’ ‘Yes.’ The lieutenant looked sharply up as if he thought he was being mocked.

The lieutenant said, ‘I only listen to you because you have no hope. No hope at all. Nothing you say will make any difference.’

It’s God you’re against. I’m the sort of man you shut up every day—and give money to.’ ‘No, I don’t fight against a fiction.’ ‘But I’m not worth fighting, am I? You’ve said so. A liar, a drunkard. That man’s worth a bullet more than I am.’ ‘It’s your ideas.’

Suffering is wrong.’ ‘And you suffer all the time,’ the priest commented,

Does the jefe feel like that too?’ ‘Oh, we have our bad men.’

‘We agree about a lot of things,’ the priest said, idly dealing out his cards. ‘We have facts, too, we don’t try to alter—that the world’s unhappy whether you are rich or poor—unless you are a saint, and there aren’t many of those. It’s not worth bothering too much about a little pain here. There’s one belief we both of us have—that we’ll all be dead in a hundred years.’

there won’t always be good men in your party. Then you’ll have all the old starvation, beating, get-rich-anyhow. But it doesn’t matter so much my being a coward—and all the rest. I can put God into a man’s mouth just the same—and I can give him God’s pardon.

The fact is, a man isn’t presented suddenly with two courses to follow: one good and one bad. He gets caught up.

‘Pride was what made the angels fall. Pride’s the worst thing of all. I thought I was a fine fellow to have stayed when the others had gone. And then I thought I was so grand I could make my own rules.

It’s a mistake one makes—to think just because a thing is difficult or dangerous …’ He made a flapping motion with his hands.

‘You are so superstitious,’ the priest said. ‘You think my blessing will be like a blinker over God’s eyes. I can’t stop him knowing all about it. Much better go home and pray. Then if he gives you grace to feel sorry, give away the money …’

‘And I’ll pray for you, father,’ the half-caste announced complacently.

The priest waved his hand; he bore no grudge because he expected nothing else of anything human

‘I’ve shot three hostages because of you. Poor men. It made me hate you.’

‘Those men I shot. They were my own people. I wanted to give them the whole world.’ ‘Well, who knows? Perhaps that’s what you did.’ The lieutenant spat suddenly, viciously, as if something unclean had got upon his tongue. He said, ‘You always have answers which mean nothing.’

‘I’m not as dishonest as you think I am. Why do you think I tell people out of the pulpit that they’re in danger of damnation if death catches them unawares? I’m not telling them fairy stories I don’t believe myself.

don’t know a thing about the mercy of God: I don’t know how awful the human heart looks to Him. But I do know this—that if there’s ever been a single man in this state damned, then I’ll be damned too.’ He said slowly, ‘I wouldn’t want it to be any different. I just want justice, that’s all.’

‘Oh, it’s funny, isn’t it? It isn’t a case of miracles not happening—it’s just a case of people calling them something else.

The lieutenant said grudgingly, ‘You aren’t a bad fellow. If there’s anything I can do for you

‘Oh, Padre José,’ the lieutenant said with contempt, ‘he’s no good for you.’ ‘He’s good enough for me. It’s not likely I’d find a saint here, is it?’

There was a sense of desolation everywhere, more of it than in the mountains because a lot of life had once existed here.

he tried to smile back, an odd sour grimace, without triumph or hope. One had to begin again with that.

He wished he had promised the priest nothing, but he was going to keep his word—because it would be a triumph for that old corrupt God-ridden world if it could show itself superior on any point—whether of courage, truthfulness, justice…

‘My dear, it’s only that … well … I am a priest.’ ‘A priest,’ the woman cackled, ‘you a priest.’ She went off into a peal of laughter,

Padre José made a despairing gesture—as much as to say, what does one more failure matter in a life like this? He said, ‘I don’t think it’s—possible.’

he hadn’t any more time to waste on mercy, and heard Padre José’s voice speak imploringly, ‘Tell him I shall pray.’

the lieutenant laughed once—a poor unconvincing addition to the general laughter which now surrounded Padre José, chiming up all round towards the disciplined constellations he had once known by name.

‘He was afraid, I suppose …’

‘Poor man.’ He tried to giggle, but no sound could have been more miserable than the half-hearted attempt. His head drooped between his knees; he looked as if he had abandoned everything and been abandoned.

‘I should like to do something for you,’ the lieutenant said. ‘I’ve brought you some brandy.’

‘You wouldn’t need this, I dare say. But I’ve always been afraid of pain.’