Death Comes for the Archbishop

Death Comes for the Archbishop

Willa Cather's "Death Comes for the Archbishop" depicts the life journey of Father Latour as he is assigned to serve as the Catholic bishop in the New Mexico territory after it is annexed by the United States. Starting with the prologue, Cather makes clear that setting will play a critical role in the story and that we must look at New Mexico as a setting in terms of both geography and morality. As three cardinals first discuss the need to assign a bishop to the New Mexico territory, the reader is given a glimpse at the geographic and moral challenges Latour will face. The New Mexico territory is rugged terrain, larger than Eastern and Central Europe combined, and geographically isolated from other bishoprics with "no wagon roads, no canals, no navigable rivers" (p. 7). This isolation has fostered racism and mistrust among the various cultures of New Mexico, and also has allowed a great deal of corruption to infiltrate the priests. The priests "are lax in religious observance," and are often "living in open concubinage" - a situation Latour is expected to bring under control (p.7). At first glance, it would appear the geographical and moral settings will create an oppressive and difficult environment in which Latour will be forced to operate, and indeed they often do. But the rough terrain and loose morality in which Latour must serve instead have a broadening effect on Latour's personality and become the backdrop against which he achieves greatness.

The archbishop vs. nature

Nature and the difficult terrain of the New Mexico territory play a critical role in deconstructing Latour's character and providing the adversity he will eventually overcome to achieve greatness. At the beginning of the story, we find Latour, a French Jesuit, serving in Sandusky, Ohio, which is a settled city that allows Latour easy access to other priests and relative comforts of living, such as decent housing, clothing and books. Latour, of course, loses his possessions when he is shipwrecked in Galveston. Cather has created a character who has lost everything at the hands of nature and now has nothing but his mission and his faith. Of course, things get even worse when Latour is injured during the travel over rough terrain and is incapacitated for months before he is finally able to enter Santa Fe.

Cather has made the journey through a "desert of ovens" difficult - and even life threatening - for Latour in order to show the difficult circumstances he is facing in his new job (p. 20). This will be inhospitable country, and Cather turns this rising religious star, promoted to bishop over a large jurisdiction, into a broken down, hobbled man with nothing but the clothes on his back.

Nature has begun to deconstruct Latour, a process that will eventually allow him to rise as a great leader. Early in the book, Latour becomes lost in the desert and is suffering from exhaustion. He then believes he sees a juniper in the shape of a cross, which must be a sign from God. This scene is important for two reasons. First, it provides insight into the imagination of Latour and his ability to see God and religion everywhere, even in threatening terrain. Second, this is arguably the deconstruction and resurrection of Latour. He is faced with a moment where he could have chosen death, but, instead, he becomes "refreshed," renewed in his faith and determined to not be defeated (p.19).

Latour's pending greatness is further demonstrated when he is not accepted in Santa Fe and must travel to Durango, Mexico - 1,500 miles each way - to obtain confirmation from the Bishop of Durango that he does, indeed, now have religious authority over the New Mexico territory. The reader is left to consider how easy it would be for Latour to turn around and leave this new assignment that has caused him nothing but sorrow. But, instead, Latour mounts a horse and makes the trip to Durango through dry, barren country. We are beginning to see the development of a character whose personality, imagination and faith are strong enough to withstand the most difficult of challenges. Latour, only a year removed from the relative comforts of Ohio, has become an improviser - a man who overcomes hardships as they are presented.

Throughout the rest of the book, we see Latour as a builder, working with nature and even improving upon it. We see him travel to obscure outposts to deliver religious sacraments. We also watch him spend his older years planting flowers and fruit trees that would be "bearing when it came time for him to rest," and ordering his priests to do the same, leaving his legacy on this difficult terrain (p.266). He has confronted this difficult country and has found a way to improve upon it.

One could argue that Latour's death shows that nature won the final battle with Latour, but this is not entirely the case. For certain, Latour catches a respiratory ailment and fever after being caught in a rainstorm, and it is clear to Latour that he will soon die. But as death hangs over Latour we again witness the greatness of his character. Latour is intent on dying under his own terms. He returns to Santa Fe "late in the afternoon, toward sunset," which brings his story full circle as the sun was setting when he first visited the city (p.270). Further, he continues his work inspecting churches and counseling Bernard. He does not cower from the hand nature has dealt him, but instead faces it with courage. In the end, we can conclude that the geographical setting in which Latour operated was rough and inhospitable. However, the difficult terrain became a backdrop on which the greatness of Latour's character could be constructed. There would have been no greatness, for example, if Latour had led his bishopric under the easiest of circumstances. Instead, the difficult geography and isolation of New Mexico broadened Latour's imagination, determination and faith, allowing his eventual success to be a significant achievement.

Overcoming a difficult moral setting

Just as the difficult natural setting Latour faced help reveal his greatness as a character, so, too, did the difficult moral setting he was forced to overcome as he took the reins in New Mexico. Latour's job, essentially, was to cultivate and grow the relationship between the church and the people, and unfortunate moral choices made by previous representatives of the church had left both parties as damaged goods. While the reader is given an indication during the prologue that corrupt priests had damaged the church's reputation in New Mexico, the situation was perhaps even worse than Cather initially hinted. Complicating the conflict between the priests and the church was the rocky relationships between the Mexicans, Americans and Indians, who all had an element of mistrust for each other - a situation exacerbated by the recent Mexican-American war; the annexation of New Mexico by the United States; and the geographic isolation of New Mexico, which sometimes hindered mingling.

When Latour first entered Santa Fe, he was not greeted with pomp, but with indifference by Father Martinez. Perhaps he was a con-man making a power grab in a place where, unfortunately, that behavior could have been expected. This theme of distrust is reinforced during Latour's visit to Durango when, en route, he spends time in the village of Aqua Secreta. Latour finds a village of people who have been wronged by the church and by the American government. Marriages and baptisms have been unofficial because the designated priests from Albuquerque charged usurious fees of 20 pesos to perform sacraments, meaning the settlement's men had "taken wives without the marriage sacrament" (p.26). It is at this moment that Latour begins to more fully understand what is facing him. Not only has corruption undermined the church's efforts, but the people of the town are resentful of Americans in general because churches were destroyed during the Mexican War. Questionable moral decisions have created a culture of distrust and Latour faces the difficult challenge of dealing with corrupt priests and healing the relationship between the church, America and the people.

It is easy to imagine the many different ways Latour could have failed in this quest, or given up altogether. He could have joined the corruption, perhaps reclaiming some of the Ohio comforts he had lost; or, certainly, he could have been killed or undermined by the ingrained machine of corruption. But, instead, Latour contemplates what must be done and decides he will return to Santa Fe and rebuild a moral church the people can trust.

Latour spends the rest of the book doing just that. Upon his return to Santa Fe, one of the first things he does is rebuild the house he will live in - an important sign of permanence. The reader is also introduced to the story of the Shrine of Guadalupe, which is a symbol of healing, overcoming obstacles and miraculous occurrences in inhospitable settings.

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.