To clarify my stance (because after the last post, I thought clarification was probably needed), I am not anti-Catholic. I come from a halfsie background, one of my parents is Catholic and the other is Protestant. And I carry great disdain for both factions of Christianity equally. Mostly because they mimic each other so closely in their ridiculous rule minding and rule creating that it's laughable. Protestants have created as many ridiculous rules for their parishioners to follow as Catholics and they have their very own garb and vestments to wear. They have their own Catechism for kids, it's just called something different. I just find it odd that there are quite a few books on the Banned List that question Catholic practices and questioning them in a very vanilla, non threatening, anything but Takin'-It-To-The-Streets manner. Death Comes For the Archbishop was written in the 1920s for Pete's sake. Nothing written in the 20s should register on any 21st century person's offense radar.
True to artistic fashion, Cather's book is about a pioneer French priest, Father Latour, who sets out to set up Catholic shop in a part of the Southwest where country boundaries (US and Mexican) are gray (it's the 1850s) at the request of THE Catholic Church HQ in Rome. They are concerned that since the territory is largely uninhabited and quite uncivilized that the people, almost all Hispanic are amalgamating their Catholic beliefs with pagan rituals without proper religious instruction. Riveting material. Honestly, there are parts where I'm dying I'm drowning in so much Catholic theology. And it doesn't help that the priest's extremely mundane daily schedule (shocker there) is recorded in minuet detail. It's pre-Civil War at this point and yet the New Mexicans are very wary of Americans and do not trust them. They grill the Father about his time living 'amongst them' in Ohio. What is disappointing to me is how one dimensional the character of Father Latour is as a priest. He writes to his family in France, ministers to the people and carries out domestic tasks. But he shows no real range of emotions. I'm not saying we should take our priest behavioral cues from The Thornbirds but obviously priests are not robots and essentially marrying yourself to the Church is not an arbitrary decision. I'm a third through the book and Father Latour has been made Vicar of New Mexico so it's still unclear who the Archbishop is or will be by story's end.
