“Padre Raimundo’s Army and Other Stories”
Arthur Powers, Wiseblood Books (2021)
201 pages, $15
Located almost exclusively in Brazil yet spanning several decades, Arthur Powers’ 2021 short story collection, “Padre Raimundo’s Army and Other Stories,” makes real the truth that faith without works is dead – and likewise, just how alive a faith lived through works truly is.
Drawn from his own experiences of life in Brazil over the latter half of the 20th century, first as a volunteer in the Peace Corps and then as a lawyer working with the Church’s land reform efforts, Powers’ presentations of the nation and its people in these 17 short stories insist on their own reality. His descriptions are almost tangible; from upper-class households to the slums of Rio de Janeiro, rural villages to city plazas and expat bars, Powers’ ability to evoke a world the reader may well have never seen has an undeniable authenticity.
That authenticity is not limited to a sense of location; time, too, is given its due, as each story is preceded by a date, informing the readers of where exactly in history they are about to find themselves. Politics – labor politics especially – mark the setting for the majority of stories in the collection, with many taking place in the context of the Catholic Church’s work in the Amazon to organize networks of farmers, lawyers, religious and laypeople against “grileiros” – unscrupulous land-grabbers willing to use fraud and violence to seize valuable land from local communities.
Other stories feature revolutionaries against the military dictatorship, which controlled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, or immigrants with histories affected by the Mozambique war for independence or the annexation of Albania by fascist Italy.
It is a testament to Powers’ command of narrative and character that these highly charged settings neither reduce the stories to uncomplicated political screeds, nor are treated as mere window-dressing. Political acts are motivated by personal commitments – farmers at risk of losing their land make hard choices, priests act against the powers that be on behalf of their flock.
Likewise, personal choices are frequently motivated by political circumstances. Families are torn apart by differing responses to oppression, economic inequality spurs desperation and rash decisions. Yet in each story the characters themselves are central; the reader sees the world through their eyes, their biases, their faith (or lack thereof) and their lived experiences. The focus remains on the individuals who populate the narrative, even in the midst of the great conflicts that buffet them.
If what sets these stories apart from other works of Catholic fiction is their rootedness in the reality of political and economic inequality, then what sets them apart from works of merely political fiction is their rootedness in faith. Woven through these narratives, sometimes as a house of refuge or a source of fortitude, sometimes as the seat of judgment and concomitant mercy, stands the Church.
What is most striking in Powers’ depiction of Catholicism is the way in which it is a source of moral strength; no merely intellectual expression of religion is to be found here, but rather a solid, practical conviction of who God is and how he wants his children to live, in the concrete circumstances of their own lives. That is not to say the path of a faith truly lived is easy – both martyrdoms of charity and the long, hard road of death to self can be found in these pages – but these stories show time and again that it is a path worth taking.
Written out of a lifetime of experience, Powers’ “Padre Raimundo’s Army and Other Stories” is a sincere and serious reflection on faith that is as real as the people who practice it. Whether in circumstances difficult, beautiful, painful or humorous, this collection insists, God is invested in the lives of his people, and in how they choose to live.