A towering work of twentieth-century American literature, Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop tells the story of the French Catholic priest Jean Marie Latour, the first bishop of the diocese of New Mexico, which was created after the Mexican-American War. With his friend and vicar Joseph Vaillant, Latour makes the long journey to the newly annexed territory of New Mexico. Once "the cradle of the Faith in the New World," now old mission churches have fallen into ruin