How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph.)
Quote #4
Had it become his duty then to run away? He had tried to escape several times, but he had always been prevented … now they wanted him to go. Nobody would stop him, saying a woman was ill or a man dying. He was a sickness now. (2.1.46)
The priest's primary duty isn't clear to him. Should he stay and minister or flee for the safety of his parishioners? Now that the people want him to go, is he more duty-bound to do what they want? Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.
Quote #5
If he left them, they would be safe, and they would be free from his example. He was the only priest the children could remember: it was from him that they would take their ideas of the faith. But it was from him too they took God—in their mouths. When he was gone it would be as if God in all this space between the sea and the mountains ceased to exist. Wasn't it his duty to stay, even if they despised him, even if they were murdered for his sake? Even if they were corrupted by his example? He was shaken with the enormity of the problem. (2.1.51)
The problem would be less enormous if the priest was a good man, but then we'd have a very different story. With his bad manners and penchant for drinking, the whisky priest perverts the very faith he preaches, but he is the only connection to the church these people have. What's a priest to do?
Quote #6
"I could easily find out, couldn't I?" the half-caste said. "I'd just have to say—father, hear my confession. You couldn't refuse a man in mortal sin." (2.1.291)
A good villain knows how to use people's responsibilities against them. An old Hitchcock movie called I Confess had a villain who used the seal of the confessional to place blame on a priest. In more recent movie fare, think the Joker in The Dark Knight, who plays with people's sense of duty, right, and wrong.