Obdulio y Rey

Archbishop Obdulio y Rey is a senior churchman whose appearances bring religious authority into contact with the novel’s civic and private worlds. He is associated with the city’s political divisions and with the public debate over whether Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, who died by suicide, could be buried in consecrated ground; the scenes give him both institutional authority and a capacity for humane conversation.

Identity and Presence

The Archbishop is glimpsed first through an irreverent likeness: Fermina Daza keeps an Amazonian monkey chained to the mango tree in her patio, and its sorrowful face, candid eyes, and eloquent hands remind observers of Obdulio y Rey. The resemblance is a detail of household comedy, not an indication that the Archbishop is present there. Fermina eventually gets rid of the monkey because of its habit of pleasuring itself in honor of the ladies, not because of its likeness to him.

The Luncheon and Civic Division

At Aminta de Olivella’s country luncheon, a violent storm overturns the arrangements. Guests crowd indoors, where the confused place cards force them into an unplanned social mixing that defies the usual conventions. In the effort to restore order at the table of honor, the Archbishop is seated to Juvenal Urbino’s right, with Fermina beside her husband.

The Archbishop calls the gathering historic: Liberals and Conservatives, opposing sides in the civil wars that had bloodied the country since Independence, are at last dining together with old wounds healed and anger dissipated. The occasion follows the election of a Liberal president after forty-five years of Conservative hegemony. Urbino privately doubts that a change of party amounts to a meaningful political difference, but does not contradict the Archbishop. Their exchange shows the prelate interpreting social proximity as a sign of reconciliation, even as Urbino remains skeptical about what political change signifies.

Jeremiah de Saint-Amour’s Death

During the luncheon, music briefly draws Urbino away from his distress over the letter connected with Jeremiah de Saint-Amour’s death. When he remembers the dead man, he turns to the Archbishop to discuss the suicide. The Archbishop has already heard about it and reports that General Jerónimo Argote has asked, on behalf of Caribbean refugees, for Jeremiah to be buried in holy ground. He considers the request itself disrespectful, yet asks in a more humane tone whether anyone knows why Jeremiah killed himself.

Urbino answers that the reason was gerontophobia. The Archbishop’s question makes room for an explanation rather than closing the matter with the religious prohibition alone. Dr. Lácides Olivella joins the conversation and regrets that a suicide should occur for any reason other than love; Urbino recognizes his own thoughts in his former pupil’s remark. When Urbino adds that Jeremiah used gold cyanide, the conversation turns from the general meaning of suicide to the specific manner of his death.

Religious Authority and Human Sympathy

Urbino speaks to the Archbishop of Jeremiah as a lay saint: a man he had known through long twilight chess games, devoted to the happiness of children, unusually learned about worldly matters, and Spartan in his habits. He describes Jeremiah as having separated himself from his past with a purity of soul. The Archbishop is scandalized that a militant, educated Catholic could regard a suicide as saintly, a reaction that marks the doctrinal boundary between the two men’s judgments. At the same time, he agrees with Urbino’s plan to create an archive of photographic negatives, showing that the disagreement does not prevent cooperation on a civic project.

Obdulio y Rey thus occupies a position between public doctrine and personal encounter. He questions a request to consecrate Jeremiah’s burial, objects to calling a suicide saintly, and nevertheless asks why the man died and listens as Urbino recounts his virtues. His scenes do not resolve the religious dispute; instead, they set institutional judgment beside grief, memory, and the effort to honor a complicated life.