Church

The Church in La Paz is the dominant religious and ideological institution of the town, deeply embedded in the colonial power structure that has governed the region for nearly four hundred years. It stands as a physical and spiritual landmark at the center of the stone and plaster city, its front steps occupied by beggars who are expert readers of the town's social and moral life. The Church's authority extends over both the wealthy in their walled gardens and the poor in their brush houses, but its relationship with each class is markedly different. For the indigenous fishing people, the Church offers the promise of salvation and the rituals of baptism and marriage, yet it also functions as an instrument of social control, preaching acceptance of one's assigned place in the world.

The Priest's Role and the Pearl

When news of Kino's discovery of the great pearl reaches the priest walking in his garden, his first thoughts turn to the practical needs of the Church: he wonders what the pearl might be worth and whether certain necessary repairs to the church building could now be funded. He also finds himself uncertain whether he had baptized Kino's baby or married Kino and Juana at all, revealing a pastoral relationship that is distant and conditional. That evening, the priest visits Kino's brush house, addressing him with a formal benediction and reminding him that he is named after a great Father of the Church who tamed the desert and sweetened the minds of his people. The priest tells Kino to give thanks to Him who has given this treasure and to pray for guidance, and he blesses the family when Juana announces that they will now be married in the church. The priest's visit is brief and leaves Kino uneasy, for the music of evil sounds faintly in his ears as the priest departs.

The Sermon on Staying in One's Station

The most explicit expression of the Church's ideological function comes in an annual sermon that Kino and his brother Juan Tomás recall as they walk to sell the pearl. The priest preaches that each man and woman is like a soldier sent by God to guard some part of the castle of the Universe, with some stationed on the ramparts and others far deep in the darkness of the walls. Each person must remain faithful to his post and must not go running about, else the castle is in danger from the assaults of Hell. This sermon is used to justify the existing social order and to discourage any attempt by the poor to improve their condition. Juan Tomás recounts how, in the past, the fishing people tried to pool their pearls and send an agent to the capital to get a fair price, but the agent was never heard of again, and the priest made it clear that the loss of the pearls was a punishment for trying to leave their station. The sermon thus serves as a direct obstacle to Kino's ambition to break out of the poverty that holds his family.

The Church and the Community

The Church is also a gathering place and a point of reference for the entire community. The procession carrying the scorpion-stung Coyotito passes in front of the church on its way to the doctor's house, and the beggars who sit at the church steps are the first to learn of the pearl and to follow the family, knowing that a poor man who suddenly becomes lucky is the most generous almsgiver. When Kino dreams of the future the pearl will bring, he sees himself, Juana, and Coyotito standing and kneeling at the high altar, being married now that they can pay. The Church thus represents both the spiritual aspirations of the people and the institutional barrier that keeps them in their place. Juana, in her moments of greatest fear, combines her Hail Marys with ancient magic, drawing on both the Church's prayers and the older traditions of her people as she tries to protect her family from the evil that the pearl has brought.

The Church's Place in the Social Order

The Church is part of the same colonial structure that includes the doctor and the pearl buyers. The doctor, who refuses to treat Coyotito because Kino has no money, keeps religious pictures in his gloomy chamber and a large tinted photograph of his dead wife, who, if Masses willed and paid for out of her own estate could do it, is in Heaven. The priest's sermon on staying in one's station reinforces the same system of economic exploitation that the pearl buyers operate, and the Church benefits from the poverty of its flock through the tithes and contributions that the lucky are expected to give. When Kino finally throws the pearl back into the sea, he has rejected not only the pearl buyers' collusion but also the entire structure of which the Church is a part, choosing instead to return to the life of poverty and insecurity that the Church has taught him to accept as his God-given station.