Death Comes for the Archbishop Term Paper

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Latour takes several steps to repair the damage done to the church by the moral misdeeds of rogue priests and, to a certain extent, the American and Mexican governments. Latour dispatches Valliant to Albuquerque and, in Valliant's travels, he performs sacraments and admonishes a priest for gambling with parish funds. Latour, for his part, helps rescue Magdalena from the abusive Buck Scales and orders the founding of a girl's school - another important symbol of permanence and the church's commitment to the community. Latour also replaces Gallegos, a corrupt priest who drinks, gambles and left his parish in a "scandalous state," with Father Valliant (p.83).

Latour's house cleaning continues throughout the story, as he is determined to conquer the book's moral setting, as he conquered its natural setting. Perhaps Latour's greatest triumph is when he forces Father Martinez, who had become a "dictator to all parishes in Northern New Mexico" to resign (p.139). Martinez is a skilled practitioner of mass, but an otherwise despicable human being. He is abusive, does not keep his vow of celibacy, has accumulated riches, and may have ordered a massacre. The powerful Martinez makes a veiled threat to kill Latour if he reinforces the rule of celibacy for priests, and a more direct threat to start a rival church if Latour challenges him. Latour, after he recruits a suitable replacement for Martinez, allows Martinez to leave and start his own church rather than permit Martinez to continue to represent Catholicism. Latour subsequently strips Martinez and his follower, Lucero, of their priesthoods. Martinez and Lucero eventually die, a literary device by Cather to show Latour's triumph was complete.

And, in the end, Latour's triumph over New Mexico's adverse moral setting is also complete. When Latour meets Sada, a slave held by anti-Catholic Protestant masters, in a church late at night, he realizes how important his life work has been and that he has built something that the people genuinely need. He arrived in a difficult moral setting - full of corruption and cultural mistrust - that easily could have claimed his faith or his life. Instead, the greatness of Latour's character was revealed against the backdrop of this setting.

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He rid the church of its corrupt priests; he learned to understand the Mexicans and Indians and their ways, which initially seemed pagan to him; and through his own strength and goodness, he worked to reestablish trust among the people of his jurisdiction.

Conclusion

The adverse natural and moral settings in which Latour operates in "Death Comes for the Archbishop" serve to broaden his imagination and his strength. He is torn away from a comfortable existence in Ohio and forced to accomplish things that had probably been unimaginable to him previously.

The natural setting of Latour's jurisdiction is rough and inhospitable. He is nearly killed by a shipwreck and subsequent perilous journeys, but eventually learns to adapt and make peace with his surroundings. He is able to build, travel extensively and plant trees that will provide nourishment for his followers. He has used his imagination and strength to thrive in an adverse setting where his defeat would have been just as imaginable.

Similarly, Latour confronts and defeats a hostile moral setting. He inherits a jurisdiction where corrupt priests and unfortunate politics have nearly destroyed the relationship between the church and its people. Rather than accept the situation as unsalvageable, Latour confronts the situation head-on. He travels across his jurisdiction weeding our bad priests and promoting cultural understanding. He makes these changes at considerable danger to himself. In the end, Latour successfully confronts inhospitable natural and moral settings and, in finding a way to succeed in these environments, reveals himself as an exceptional character......

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