216. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Death Comes for the Archbishop (Vintage, 1927; 297) by Willa Cather is about a Bishop Jean Latour and his friend Vicar Joseph Vaillant as they set out from Sandusky France to proselytise the Latinos and Indians of New Mexico and its environs when it was annexed by the Union. The story is about what they went through and how they survived in a place they knew next to nothing about. The characters of both friends complement each other: whereas the bishop was the intellectual, the vicar was the bold one. The Bishop and the Vicar would come into several obstacles; some of which include priests whose service to God is titular and ritualistic. For there is nothing about them that is priestly, with beahviours incomparable in its nefariousness to the natives they are working to convert. They were swindlers, covetous, philanderers, hoarders, and bacchanal. These would offer the greatest resistance to their work but with the intelligence and bravery they would sail through, con...