Graham Greene on Guadalupe

The legend, Mexican politicians say, was invented by the Church to enslave the Indian mind, but if indeed it had been invented at that period, the purpose would have been very different. The Virgin claimed a church from which she might guard her Indians — from the Spanish conquerors. The legend gave the Indians self-respect: it gave him a hold over his conqueror; it was a liberating legend.

So wrote the great writer of The Power and the Glory, a novel of revolutionary Mexico's persecution of the Church, quoted in an edifying essay by Kelly Wilson — Graham Greene & Guadalupe.