New Zoom book discussion
Greetings friends! This summer I am offering single-session book discussions in June, July and August. The first is on Thursday, June 27 at 11 MDT, 12 CDT, and 1 EDT. And for the first time our book will be a work of fiction: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. The book was published in 1927, four years after Cather won the Pulitzer Prize, and was a bestseller. Among other accolades, it is included in the Modern Library’s list of top 100 books of the 20th century.
Death Comes for the Archbishop is a fictionalized account of the life of Jean-Baptiste Lamy, the first Archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Born in France in 1814, Lamy arrived in Santa Fe in 1851, shortly after New Mexico became a United States territory, and died there in 1888.
The novel does not tell a single story but is a series of episodes describing events in the life of the fictional Jean Marie Latour, beginning with his arduous journey to Santa Fe. Mexicans, Spaniards, Indians, newly arriving Americans, and this seemingly out-of-place Frenchmen and the countrymen who join him, make for a vivid cast of characters. Another omnipresent “character” is the rugged and spare Newmexican landscape, which Cather portrays as vividly as her human ones.
While she may not have described it this way, Cather’s book is a study in pastoral ministry. This is truly the “wild west”, and Latour walks into an incredibly complex and conflicted society of different races, ethnicities, cultures, languages, values, and religions.
While the Catholic church had been present in the region for over 300 years, it had become a shambles. Latour’s assignment as the new bishop is to try to rebuild the church in a way that accommodates this diverse population and adapts to the new American culture. It is a remarkable story and one, while from another era especially in regards to the church, surprisingly relevant to our own time.
The book is easily found online, in libraries, and perhaps in bookstores. I recommend the Vintage Classics edition pictured here. It is also available digitally. Right now the Amazon Kindle version is only 99 cents.