Death Comes for the Archbishop

Death Comes for the Archbishop, novel by Willa Cather, published in 1927.

Bishop Jean Latour and his vicar Father Joseph Vaillant together create pioneer missions and organize the new diocese of New Mexico. Youthful friends in France, they are lifelong comrades, united by a love of their native country, as well as by their common purpose, but their characters are sharply contrasted. Latour is an intellectual and a patrician, highly sensitive but tolerant and possessed of an indomitable resolution and courage, remaining solitary in the midst of his people's love and his friend's devotion. Vaillant is practical, humane, companionable, and vigorous. The two combine to triumph over the apathy of the Hopi and Navajo Indians, the opposition of corrupt Spanish priests, and adverse climatic and topographic conditions. They are assisted by Kit Carson and by such devoted Indians as the guide Jacinto. When Vaillant goes as a missionary bishop to Colorado, they are finally separated, but Latour dies soon after his friend, universally revered and respected, to lie in state in the great Santa Fe cathedral that he himself created.