The Power & The Glory, Part III (pg.202-222)

During this final part of the book, one finds out that the priests worst nightmare at the beginning of the book became true. After all his running and hiding he is finally caught. One would think that somewhere along the book the lieutenant could catch up with the priest and capture him, but the way the priest is caught is different to what the reader was expecting from the beginning. After reading this part of the book, one can deduct that the priest is a hero. It could be said that he's a poor role model, because he drinks and does not take his religious position seriously, but as a human being the priest never forgets about his position in life and always tries to do the right thing (even thought he doesn't accomplish it sometimes). His running away from the authorities never stops him from thinking about the people, the priest knows that he can be given in at any moment for the money offered for him, but he stills gives mass and helps people because he knows it's the right thing to do. At the end of the book the priest is completely alone, but after his death is remember by everyone. It's a bit ironic because his life's work is not worth a thing, but the moment he dies he's most probably going to become a saint or a martyr. " 'No need to have fired another shot. The soul of the young hero had already left its earthly mansion, and the happy smile on the dead face told even those ignorant men where they would find Juan now. One of the men there that day was so moved by his bearing that he secretly soaked his handkerchief in the martyr's blood, and that handkerchief, cut into a hundred relics, found its way into many pious homes. And now,' the mother went rapidly on, clapping her hands, 'to bed.' 'And that one,' the boy said, 'they shot today. Was he a hero too?' 'Yes.' (The Power & The Glory, Part IV, Chapter 1, pg. 219)."

This time the book will be connected to the movie City of Angels with Nicolas Cage, Andre Braugher and Meg Ryan. This movie is about an angel called Seth (Nicolas Cage) who falls in love with a human doctor called Maggie Rice (Meg Ryan). These angels which protect the city are always in the library learning new things and being on top of everything. One day while visiting a person who is about to die Seth sees Doctor Rice and falls in love with her, but she can't see him. The angels can never be seen unless they want it to happen. Later on in the film, Seth wants Maggie to see him and when she does he doesn't know how to react because he wasn't expecting this to occur. After this event, Seth starts to 'date' Doctor Rice and when he falls deeply in love with her he decides to give his immortality away so he can be with her. When they finally can be together she gets run over by a car and dies. The event mentioned before concerning Seth's lose of immortality is similar to the priests death. In the book, one can notice that the priest gives his life to what he believes is doing the right thing, which would be going back to the hostile territory and listening to the gringos last words of forgiveness. The priest knew his life would be placed in danger, but he didn't care and went back. This could be taken as the priest trying to stand up against humanities greatest fear which is death. At the end of the book the character's that where first introduced to us (Tench and the mother with her two daughters and son) reappear and are the ones who speak about the priests death. The weird thing is that at the end they talk about a priest or the man introduces himself as a priest, but they never say his name so it makes one think that maybe the priest has not died or been killed. We'll never know for sure.