From reading The Power and the Glory Part I chapters 1-4 there was one specific chapter that really stuck out to me in regards to totalitarian culture and how it is portrayed through fictional story telling. In chapter 2 of this section of the book on page 31 where Padre Jose is at odds with his faith and after being so tied to the bottle. He describes his actions of being able to perform the sacraments as “sacrilege” and everything he did he “defiled God”.
Padre Jose felt like such a fraud when he stood up in front of a congregation to help his brothers and sisters with his words to follow Christ. He was torn between his duty to God and his “duty” to whiskey, and people in the town did not trust him as is clear in later chapters when the young girl sneaks the priest beer when her parents are not watching. They tell her to go no where near that priest as he is a bad influence.
I thought this quote from that passage stood out the most to me: “But then he remembered the gift he had been given which nobody could take away. That was what made him worthy of damnation–the power he still had of turning the wafer into the flesh and blood of God. He was sacrilege. Wherever he went, whatever he did, he defiled God” (pg. 31). I felt this was such a strong wording and deep meaning that he understands the depth of his duty to God, to serve him at any cost no matter the consequences. This feels especially like the people in the Gulags who found their faith in the hardest of hardships because they had nothing and no one else to turn to but God. This is the definition of the power of totalitarian culture and the strength one must have in order to overcome it with their whole soul.