Chris Moser
December 2, 2008
Mr. Soodik
Corrupt Catholicism
In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the Caribbean town of Santiago Nasar pretends to uphold religious and aristocratic ways when in fact the town is backwards and disobeys the standards set by the status quo. The citizens of the town try to keep their honor, but the women and men of the town are hypocritical. The men are murderers even though they go to church and the women are supposed to be virgins when in fact they are sleeping around and almost all are no longer virgins.
The Vicario brothers are a good example of these hypocritical ways. They claim that they are innocent in the eyes of God when in fact they are not because killing is breaking one of the Ten Commandments in the Catholic Religion. They even admit it out loud: “We killed him openly… but we’re innocent.” (49). They use the excuse that the only reason they murdered Santiago was to preserve the honor of their sister, Angela: “It was a matter of Honor” (83). Angela says that her virginity was taken by Santiago so Pablo and Pedro have to avenge her by killing Santiago. Also, it is obvious that the Vicario brothers do not want to commit the murder because they get very drunk before the murder.
Even the religious leader of the town is hypocritical meaning that the Catholic religion in the town of Santiago is hypocritical. When the bishop comes to visit the town he won’t even get off the boat to go into the town because he knows that the town is corrupt. He stands on the boat and waves to the people. This shows another example of religious leaders knowing about the corruption of the town. When the priest does the autopsy he does it carelessly. He does not care at all about the people and gives him an “angry blessing” (76). He does the autopsy so carelessly that the body might not have even been Santiago’s.
The Catholic people claim that love is an important aspect of the Catholic religion; however, in the town of Santiago, the...