The novel

The pen of a Protestant woman has created one of the most beautiful figures of a Catholic priest in literature. In Death Comes for the Archbishop, a novel written in 1927, the North American writer Willa Cather reveals a surprising capacity for assimilation by giving life to Jean Marie Latour, a young French priest sent in 1851 to New Mexico as Vicar Apostolic by the Church of Rome, which was concerned about the recent annexation of this territory by the United States. Forced to face up to his own limitations, to the Indian tribes persecuted by the white people, ancient traditions, immoral priests and nature perceived as hostile, while preaching the Good News Latour manages to tune in profoundly with “his” people; a reciprocal enrichment that was to transform thirty years of evangelization into a precious fruit. This is an adventurous and absorbing novel of discovery, faith, friendship, exchange, suffering and spiritual growth. Its splendid mystery grows as one reads it, revealing that a lay, Protestant and American woman was able to convey the deep complexity of a Catholic priest. And a French one at that.