How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph.)
Quote #1
"Some food."
"We have no food."
"Never mind."
The boy came out of the hut and watched them: everybody watched. It was like a bull-fight. The animal was tired and they waited for the next move. They were not hard-hearted; they were watching the rare spectacle of something worse off than themselves. (1.3.166-9)
This explains the Jerry Springer show.
Quote #2
"The boy, father, has not been baptized. The last priest who was here wanted two pesos. I had only one peso. Now I have only fifty centavos." (1.3.176)
Pope Francis would not be pleased. The lieutenant certainly isn't. And such actions help support his argument that the Church serves the rich at the expense of the poor.
Quote #3
"You've changed." She looked him up and down with a kind of contempt. She said, "When did you get those clothes, father?" […] "It's a waste. You look like a common man." (2.1.8-14)
Notice the cultural and social expectation: a priest should not look like a common man. The priesthood is a higher class, and by looking poor, the priest dishonors it. Even in the house of God, it seems you've got to dress to impress.
Quote #4
It had been a happy childhood, except that he had been afraid of too many things, and had hated poverty like a crime; he had believed that when he was a priest he would be rich and proud—that was called having a vocation. (2.1.76)
Ouch! Actually, this gets at something important, namely the reason why the priest became a priest in the first place. He feared and hated poverty. He wasn't drawn by the honor of service or the splendor of ritual or the truth of the faith; he wanted an escape from what he most despised. Now if only we could figure a way to get out doing homework…
Quote #5
Again he was touched by an extraordinary affection. He was just one criminal among a herd of criminals ... He had a sense of companionship which he had never experienced in the old days when pious people came kissing his black cotton glove. (2.3.89)
For this priest, at least, being of a higher class was not good for him. It's in a prison with equals that he discovers the Christian love of neighbor. He has to hit rock bottom after sinking into what he most fears before he really gets what the priesthood is all about. Better late than never.
Quote #6
"My sister and I are Lutherans. We don't hold with your Church, father. Too much luxury, it seems to me, while the people starve." (3.1.18)
Coincidentally, it's in the home of the Lehrs that the priest learns that even their relative luxury is too big a temptation for him. Their home is his lion's den—the place where is faith is tested.
Quote #7
"Have you ever told a landlord he shouldn't beat his peon—oh yes, I know, in the confessional perhaps, and it's your duty, isn't it, to forget it at once. You come out and have dinner with him and it's your duty not to know that he has murdered a peasant. That's all finished. He's left it behind in your box." (3.3.53)
In the lieutenant's mind, the forgiveness of sins that priests offer benefit the rich and corrupt the poor and oppressed—sometimes at their expense. This makes the Church part of the social order he wants to uproot. That explains it.
Quote #8
"We have facts, too, that we don't try to alter—that the world's unhappy whether you are rich or poor—unless you are a saint, and there aren't many of those. It's not worth bothering too much about a little pain here. There's one belief we both of us have—that we'll all be dead in a hundred years." (3.3.62)
The priest doesn't share the lieutenant's belief that empowering the poor will make the world a happier or better place. We wonder what the priest means by a "little" pain. Any pain in this life would seem little in comparison to eternal hellfire.
Quote #9
"We've always said the poor are blessed and the rich are going to find it hard to get into heaven. Why should we make it hard for the poor man too? Oh, I know that we are told to give to the poor, to see they are not hungry—hunger can make a man do evil just as much as money can. But why should we give the poor power? It's better to let him lie in dirt and wake in heaven—so long as we don't push his face in the dirt." (3.3.107)
The priest disagrees not only with the means the lieutenant uses to raise up the poor, but also with the goal itself. The two men have their similarities, but there's not a lot of common ground between their respective worldviews. It's no surprise that historically Catholicism and atheistic socialism have been at odds.