By depicting the mysteries of the Catholic faith as well as the everyday evidence of divine order and the order imposed by the hierarchical presence of the Catholic Church in Death Comes for the Archbishop, Cather seems to be advocating for Catholicism. Although she admitted that she "felt that the story of the Catholic Church in [the Southwest] was the most interesting of all its stories," Cather also wrote, "Any story of the Church in the Southwest was certainly the business of some Catholic writer, and not mine at all." She nevertheless created the definitive fictional narrative of the role of the Catholic Church in the American Southwest.
Death Comes for the Archbishop addresses the history of the Catholic presence in the American Southwest from the earliest Spanish missionaries of the sixteenth century to the latter part of the nineteenth century. During this time, the Catholic presence underwent several permutations, from the devotional fervor of the earliest missionaries to the lapsed and decidedly worldly practices of such priests as Friar Baltazar Montoya, Padre Gallegos, Antonio Jose Martinez, and Padre Marino Lucero. Despite the depictions of these corrupt men, the Catholic faith is preserved by the inclusion of such characters as Padre Escolastico Herrera, who tells Latour the story of the Shrine of Guadalupe; and Padre Jesus de Baca, who possesses what Cather describes as a "quality of golden goodness" because he lives a life of austere poverty among his parishioners.
Miracles are depicted as common occurrences in the uncivilized Southwestern landscape. Miracles, interpreted as a rationally inexplicable event by Vaillant and as a naturally occurring indication of divine presence by Latour, contribute to the Catholic nature of the novel. Latour perceives as a miracle the appearance of the cruciform tree, which leads his pack animals to the Agua Secreta ("Hidden Water"). However, miracles that appear to be the direct intervention of the divine are also presented by Cather as in the depictions of the story of the Virgin Mary and the Shrine of Guadalupe and the story of Fathers Junipero Serra and Andrea, the two priests who seemingly receive the hospitality of the Holy Family of Joseph, Mary, and Christ after the priests become lost in the desert.
