Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather, Part 4

This is my fourth post on Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop. 

Part1 was on the landscape theme. 

Part2 a photo essay of the New Mexican landscape.  

Part3 a photo essay of the actual Cathedral referred to in the novel.  

The second major theme, and perhaps the central theme of the entire novel, is the civilizing effect that Catholicism brings to the region.  We see this right in the Prologue where the reason for selecting Latour for the Bishopric is that he is a man who needs to bring “order” to a place where “savagery and ignorance” rule the day.  (p. 8).  As I mentioned previously, the landscape of Rome is a tamed version of the landscape we see in New Mexico.  It has become tamed, symbolized by the dome of the Vatican over a land and people who were one time also savage and ignorant.  Rome is a projection of what New Mexico needs to become.  The dome of St. Peter’s Basilica projects the future Cathedral in Sante Fe.

And early on we get a sense of this mission from Latour and Vaillant as they administer the sacraments, evangelize the indigenous people, and shape the existing New Mexican culture.  “The Church can do more than the Fort to make these poor Mexicans ‘good Americans’ Latour writes in a letter to back home to France (p. 35-36).  We see Vaillant cooking refined dishes and teaching the housekeepers his recipes.  Fr. Latour comments on Vaillant’s onion soup.

“Think of it, Blanchet; in all this vast country between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean, there is probably not another human being who could make a soup like this.”

“Not unless he is a Frenchman,” said Father Joseph. He had tucked a napkin over the front of his cassock and was losing no time in reflection.

“I am not deprecating your individual talent, Joseph,” the Bishop continued, “but, when one thinks of it, a soup like this is not the work of one man. It is the result of a constantly refined tradition. There are nearly a thousand years of history in this soup.”

(p. 38)

The priest’s mission is to bring that two thousand year tradition of Christ’s Church to a people who lack it.  New Mexico, as it turns out, is the second assignment where these two priest friends have worked.  Their first mission was in Ohio where at the least they planted a garden.  Vaillant reflects back at that garden they had to leave for other people.

“And salad, Jean,” he continued as he began to carve. “Are we to eat dried beans and roots for the rest of our lives? Surely we must find time to make a garden. Ah, my garden at Sandusky! And you could snatch me away from it! You will admit that you never ate

better lettuces in France. And my vineyard; a natural habitat for the vine, that. I tell you, the shores of Lake Erie will be covered with vineyards one day. I envy the man who is drinking my wine. Ah well, that is a missionary’s life; to plant where another shall reap.”  (p. 39)

The garden here represents control over wild nature.  The missionary, then, is a person who makes a place for controlled vegetation for the refinement of life.  The two priests are just small elements of a bigger picture that will span lifetimes.  Latour goes on to explain what the Church is there to do.  His explanation stems from learning about the visitation of Our Lady of Guadelupe and of the miracle of the mantle of her image. 

“What a priceless thing for the poor converts of a savage country!” he exclaimed, wiping his glasses, which were clouded by his strong feeling. “All these poor Catholics who have been so long without instruction have at least the reassurance of that visitation. It is a household word with them that their Blessed Mother revealed Herself in their own country, to a poor convert. Doctrine is well enough for the wise, Jean; but the miracle is something we can hold in our hands and love.”

Father Vaillant began pacing restlessly up and down as he spoke, and the Bishop watched him, musing. It was just this in his friend that was dear to him. “Where there is great love there are always miracles,” he said at length. “One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love. I do not see you as you really are, Joseph; I see you through my affection for you. The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.”

(p. 49-50)

The beautiful image of the Blessed Mother brings a refinement to the “savage country,” Vaillant observes.  And Latour responds that the miracles come not so much to heal but to make perceptions “finer,” so that they can see and hear “what is there about us always.”  That to me is the central thesis of the novel, and its guiding aesthetic principle.  The Church refines the culture so that the people can hear and see the divine in this amazing and savage landscape. 

The novel is a sort of collage of imagery and episodes that run through time.  There is no driving narrative except for the time that passes as the priests perform their functions.  We see Vaillant stipulating order and cleanliness as he performs his priestly duties at the Lujon ranch.

“Take me to a place where I can wash and change my clothes, and I will be ready before you can get them here. No, I tell you, Lujon, the marriages first, the baptisms afterward; that order is but Christian. I will baptize the children tomorrow morning, and their parent will at least have been married over night.” (p.55)

We see Latour bring in the Sister of Loretto from France to set up a school in his diocese.  We see devout Madame Olivares sing and play the harp.  We see Fr. Vaillant riding thirty miles a day to the Hopi Indians, “marrying, baptizing, confessing as he went, making camp in the sand-hills at night” (p. 202).  We learn that Vaillant likes to leave “some little token” in every house he visits, “a rosary or a religious picture,” going away “feeling that I have conferred immeasurable happiness, and have released faithful souls that were shut away from God by neglect” (p. 206).  That is the refinement, the civilizing process, that the Church brings in the novel. 

And of course there is the Cathedral, but let us hold off the discussion of its construction for another place.

So we see the Church’s mission of civilizing and we see the process, but we also get a glimpse of the fruits of that labor.  One occasion comes early on in the novel.  Latour is lost in the desert and suffering of thirst.  Suddenly his mare senses water nearby and leads him to it. 

Running water, clover fields, cottonwoods, acacias, little adobe houses with brilhant gardens, a boy driving a flock of white goats toward the stream,—that was what the young Bishop saw. A few moments later, when he was struggling with his horses, trying to keep them from overdrinking, a young girl with a black shawl over her head came running toward him. He thought he had never seen a kindlier face. Her greeting was tha of a Christian.

“Ave Maria Purissima, Senor. Whence do you come?”

“Blessed child,” he replied in Spanish, “I am a priest who has lost his way. I am famished for water.”

“A priest?” she cried, “that is not possible! Yet 1 look at you, and it is true. Such a thing has never happened to us before; it must be in answer to my father’s prayers. Run, Pedro, and tell father and Salvatore.  (p. 24)

The shepherd boy, the little stream, the kind and innocent young girl, the little hamlet who are filled with simple and devout Catholics, what Fr. Latour finds is an isolated community that is living the faith, beautiful in their kindness, a little garden of paradise in the midst of a savage country.  He finds a microcosm of what he hopes to transform all of New Mexico.  In this instance, Latour is reaping the benefits of someone else’s plantings.  But creating this Edenic community across his diocese is his mission and at the center of the novel.