2.2 The Lieutenant
As a Mexican whose job and main aim it is to contribute to his people's safety and well-being, the lieutenant sees it as a duty of utmost importance to track down and capture any remaining active priest within his range (cf. Greene 25). The regime's argumentation has apparently influenced him in his personal opinion, which is rather opposed to engaging in any religious acts or commitments, as is depicted by the fact that “it infuriated him to think that there were still people in the state who believed in a loving and merciful God” (Greene 24). Though his personal structure of belief remains concealed, it is possible to assume that a belief in social revolution and the ideals of Marxism have taken on the role of religious eagerness in his motivational scheme. Under this perspective, his obedience to orders bears aspects of his people's obedience to God's commandments. This contrast also manifests itself in the lieutenant's disability to establish a bonding to his people (cf. Greene 220). His exterior position in the Mexican community lets him feel out of place and leads to the interdependent disconnection dominant in the relationship between self-proclaimed protector and unwillingly protected.
Curiously, the lieutenant, like the priest, remains nameless and anonymous throughout the entire story line, making his identity interchangeable. Greene presumably has equipped both roles with the quality of carrying historical relevance. It is thinkable that his conception of the priest and the lieutenant depict the two dominant, yet opposing, political and cultural positions that Greene witnessed during his stay in Mexico in 1938 (cf. Erzgräber 424). In addition, the lieutenant appears to have switched places with the priest in regard to ideological self-conception in relation to the individual profession. Pattern explicates:
The police lieutenant who successfully tracks down the priest may at first look like a perfect antithesis to the hunted man; he believes in the social revolution, he has a purely materialistic view of life, and he is fanatically anticlerical, but actually he, too, symbolises a side of the priest's character, and, fundamentally, the two men are more alike than different. Like the priest, the lieutenant has a vocation to which he has given his life. (312).
This thought is underlined by the fact that “there was something of a priest in his intent observant walk” (Greene 24).
In contrast to his socialist and anti-religious ideological credo, the lieutenant, in the end, seems to be impressed and affected by the priest's newly discovered dignity. This notion even makes him “[wait] till after dark and then” (Greene 202) go and see Padre José in order to bring him to the priest for his last confession (cf. Greene 203). When this request is rejected (cf. Greene 205), he returns to the moribund clergyman, disappointed for the sake of the nameless priest (cf. Greene 206f), yet content “with acid satisfaction” (Greene 204) that his prejudices concerning clerics have been confirmed. In total, the encounter with the man he has been hunting all along appears to have changed the lieutenant's opinion towards clergymen in general. The hint that, at this point, “he couldn't summon up any hate of the small hollow man” (Greene 207) any longer implies that the humane aura of the priest has convinced him that “he's not a bad man” (Greene 204) after all.
2.3 Padre José and Juan
Padre José is often referred to as “despicable” (Greene 27) and presented as the most negative role model within the novel. The reader learns that he has publicly forsaken his faith, taken a wife and come to terms with the regime's conditions as “a Government pensioner” (Greene 30). The negative image of Padre José hardens, when he refuses to grant the nameless priest his help. This particular scene involves an enormous amount of hate on the side of José as the reader learns that “he tried to gather up his venom into spittle and shot it feebly at the [nameless priest's] face” (Greene 118). José's overall status of failure is mirrored by the fact that “it didn't even reach, but fell impotently through the air” (Greene 118). This and other forms of impotence are attributed to Padre José manifold (cf. Greene 29).
It remains unclear whether he chose to obey the regime's demands out of fear and timidness, as is believed within his community (cf. Greene 27) or out of a more altruistic motivation, knowing that he can be of more use when he remains alive than when becoming just another martyr. This would imply that he puts the well-being of his fellow men before the salvation of his own soul, which could be signified by him stating that “he was more of a martyr than the rest” (Greene 27). As a result, José becomes the real martyr which is underlined by the idea of the townspeople's ignorance of his sacrifice and their mockery of his decision (cf. Greene 204f).
