Márquez critique of religion

In the short story, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings", Gabriel Garcia Marquez implicitly condemns the ideology of Catholicity for its problematic Church’s hierarchy and the teaching of wrong doctrines that lead to people to have a faulty perception of Catholic religion.

In the story, Marquez illustrates the reaction of a group of villagers when they encounter a celestial figure-an old man with enormous wings. Pelayo and Elisenda are in great stupor when they find a human with wings, and then they realize that he looks like a holy apparition- an angel that is depicted in the bible. They do not believe that he is an angel that has descended from heaven; instead, quickly they question his identity of an angel and they do not treat him with any respect. They give him the worst treatment possible and approach him with caution: “Pelayo watched over him all afternoon from the kitchen, armed with his bailiff’s club, and and before going to bed he dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop.” (452) They choose not believe the old man as an angel, but to merely base their beliefs on the final verdict decision of Father Gonzaga and the people with higher order in the Catholic church (bishop, supreme Pontuff). This shows that their beliefs of Catholism is not depenent on their faith or the Bible’s reading, but heavily based on the doctrine and practices that are set by the influential people in Catholic church.

The religion of this community sets misleading expectations of their spiritual beliefs. As Father Gonzaga comes to visit the old men, he judges the old man’s identity according to his catechism. The priest characterizes the old man’s identity by ridiculous guidelines in his doctrinal manuals: angel must speaks in the language of God (Latin) and they must know the way to greet the God’s ministers. The priest also judges him based on the superficial appearance. He thinks that the old man is “too human”. He has a bad smell of the outdoors, and moreover, his wings are infected with parasites and are torn badly. Based on the expectations of an angel the priest has learned from his catechism, the old man’s appearance does not measured up to the holiness of the dignified angels. Besides the priest, the people in the community also use radical ways to test the old man’s identity. They follow the wisdom of the wise neighbor woman to feed the old man mothballs to examine him. People trust the knowledge from the powerful people in the community, the priest and the woman, to judge their religious beliefs. As a result, it causes people to have wrong perceptions and expectations of catholism.