That suppression had resulted in the Cristero War (1926–1929), so named for its Catholic combatants' slogan "Viva Cristo Rey" ("Long live Christ the King").

But in Radical Socialist Tabasco, priests have been settled by the state with wives (breaking celibacy) and pensions in exchange for their renouncing the faith and being strictly banned from fulfilling pastoral functions.

A scene-setting introduction to some of the characters, who are enduring a barely satisfactory existence in the provincial capital, now gives way to the story of the novel's protagonist: a fugitive priest returned after years to the small country town that was formerly his parish.

In doing so, he is faced by many problems, not least of which is that Tabasco is also prohibitionist, with the unspoken prime objective to hinder celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass, for which actual wine is an essential.

Near death after a perilous journey, he is rescued by the workers of the Lehrs, Protestant land-owners from the US, who nurse the priest back to health and help him make plans to reach the local capital.

A faithful Catholic woman, who has previously figured as reading pious tracts about the lives of native saints to her children, has added the protagonist to her repertoire of Christian martyrs and now agrees to harbour this new arrival.

In that generally hostile account of his visit he wrote "That, I think, was the day I began to hate the Mexicans"[11] and at another point described his "growing depression, almost pathological hatred ... for Mexico.

[14] Many details reported in Greene's nonfiction treatment of his Tabasco trip appeared in the novel, from the sound of a revolver in the police chief's holster to the vultures in the sky.

[18][19] The Power and the Glory was somewhat controversial and, in 1953, Cardinal Bernard Griffin of Westminster summoned Greene and read him a pastoral letter condemning the novel.

The price of liberty, even within a Church, is eternal vigilance, but I wonder whether any of the totalitarian states ... would have treated me as gently when I refused to revise the book on the casuistical ground that the copyright was in the hands of my publishers.

There was no public condemnation, and the affair was allowed to drop into that peaceful oblivion which the Church wisely reserves for unimportant issues.Evelyn Waugh in Greene's defence wrote, "It was as fatuous as unjust – a vile misreading of a noble book."