The Power and the Glory is set during the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution (circa 1910-1920). The whisky priest’s troubles stem from the government’s outlawing the Catholic Church, legislation that was enacted in 1926 under President Elias Calles. The government’s attempts to suppress religious activities—and thus elevate its own authority—were subsequently challenged in a series of conflicts known as the Cristero War. Greene modeled the novel’s lieutenant on the staunchly anticlerical governor of the state of Tabasco, Tomás Canabal. In the late 1930s, Greene spent time in Mexico, where his research for another project eventually led him to write The Power and the Glory.

None of this information is explicitly revealed within the novel. It conveys the priest’s circumstances and the general atmosphere of persecution and danger through elliptical asides and brief moments of guarded conversation. For example, when the whisky priest is conversing with Mr. Tench, he asks whether the dentist was familiar with the area “before the Red Shirts came” (15). This refers to the quasi-military operatives who are hunting him, and the priest speaks of that time with nostalgia because religion was still legally practiced. The mother, in reading her story of Young Juan’s martyrdom, mentions the presidency of Calles: “The devil was ready to assail poor Mexico” (50), as she puts it.