Bishop Latour Research Paper

Bishop Latour’s Achievements When one gets older, he start to reflect on his life instead of looking ahead as someone young would do. In Death Comes for the Archbishop, Bishop Latour has reached this point in his life. At one point, he felt as if he was a failure: “His soul had become a barren field. He had nothing within himself to give his priests or his people. His work seemed superficial, a house built upon the sands. His great diocese still a great heathen country….The Mexicans were children who play with their religion.” The reader soon sees that he was a very successful man through his work with the cathedral, education, and evangelization. Bishop Latour was successful in building a cathedral. He had always wanted to build a cathedral while he was in New Mexico. “Bishop Latour had one very keen worldly ambition: to build in Santa Fe a cathedral which would be worthy of a setting naturally beautiful” His desire to build this cathedral shows his religious commitment. A cathedral will be a visual reminder to the Mexicans to …show more content…
The most prominent way one can see his success is in the scene with Sada. Sada was a Mexican slave living with a Protestant family. The family would not let Sada leave the house to go and pray. They threatened to kill her if she left. She escapes the house to come pray at the church while Bishop Latour is there. She helps to renew his faith: “He received the miracle in her heart into his own, saw through her eyes, knew that his poverty was as bleak as hers…this church was Sada’s house, and he was a servant in it.” Sada helped him to realize that his work was being accomplished. Sada was the example he needed to be able to see that he was a successful man. Sada also came at the perfect time. Bishop Latour was having what is called the dark night of the soul. He is wondering if he will die in vain. He does not believe that he had done enough with his life. God validated his work through