The Power and the Glory

Short Review: I can't read this without thinking about Endo's Silence. I will always connect Greene and Endo, but I think these two books are the two that are probably most connected between the two authors. Both are about persecutions, but different types of persecutions. I didn't know anything about the Mexican persecution of the church prior to reading this. I looked up a little bit about it after I finished the book. It was regional and not a serious, but there was still many people that died and the suffering described here seems realistic.

The Power and the Glory is smaller and I think a bit more approachable as a means to thinking about what it means to be a Christian in the face of suffering. Silence is so big. The entire church was essentially wiped out. Graham Greene's story ends more hopefully because as he was publishing it, the persecution was basically ended. The church overcame. So the stories are different because of the endings.

Part of what is interesting to me is how the role of the priest in Catholic theology is different from a Protestant Pastor and so the whiskey priest, as much as he may have been ridiculed because of his sin, was still a priest. A similar book I don't think could really be written about a Protestant pastor.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-power-and-the-glory/