How It All Goes Down
A young priest named Father Latour hears from the Vatican that he needs to take over a new Catholic diocese in New Mexico. He knows that the job will be tough, so he brings along his buddy Father Vaillant to help him out.
From the moment they get to New Mexico, though, they know it's going to be tough to bring their diocese into line. For starters, they have to cover a huge area with nothing but mules to travel with. Second, they need to take power away from a bunch of Mexican priests who don't care that New Mexico is now a part of the United States. Finally, they find it almost impossible to convince the Native Americans in the area that Catholicism is the right way to go, especially since these Native Americans have their own beliefs that go back for thousands of years.
Over time, Latour and Vaillant manage to do some good work. They even help catch a murderer and offer his abused wife a safe and happy life inside a nun's school. Still though, they struggle with the fact that they'll probably spend the rest of their lives working to spread Catholicism through a foreign land that doesn't really want it.
As he gets older, Father Latour dreams about leaving behind a legacy so that the people of New Mexico will remember his work after he's gone. He settles on building a great Cathedral in the town of Santa Fe. It takes years, but the thing eventually gets built. The victory is bittersweet, though, since Latour has lost his best friend. Father Vaillant has died after moving to Colorado to convert a bunch of prospectors to Catholicism.
In the final years of his life, Latour (who is now an Archbishop) worries that the white colonizers have treated the Native Americans too harshly by killing them and taking their land. (Huh, you think?!) He worries that these people and their way of life will soon die out. But history, of course, will end up proving him wrong, since Native Americans are still around today and still holding onto many of their traditional beliefs and practices.
In the end, Archbishop Father Latour dies. (Is anyone surprised?) During his last moments, he thinks about the time he decided—as a young priest—to make the journey with Father Vaillant to North America. He feels comfortable in the decisions he has made, and he's able to die in peace.