The novel Pedro Páramo, uses religious imagery and satire as an element that differs with the characters in order to show the lack of principles and lack of faith most religions uphold. The novel takes place in purgatory, which is Comala. The town of Comala is a town of ghosts, souls in penance, echoes and disembodied voices, and because of the many souls begging for prayers, the town is full of murmurs. The town of Comala is said to sit "on the coals of the earth, at the very mouth of hell."" Even though the people of Comala are dead, they are obsessed with the afterlife and prayer, and they even attend church regularly, but these are habits that have lost their original meaning. Rulfo uses these significant activities to make the character's separation more apparent. .
In Pedro Paramo, Father Renteria is the town priest in Comala. Being a priest demands honesty, purity, and the power to believe in what one teaches. Father Renteria might have these qualities early in the novel, but later on, he realizes that he is the cause of the sins which fall upon Comala. When Father Renteria realizes that it is his fault, and acknowledges the consequences, it haunts him, and the town subconsciously feels his burden, thus adding to Comala's religious and psychological condition. Father Renteria's disappointment led the people of Comala to turn Father Renteria into a man who led his people astray. Father Renteria's religious failure was because of just one man, Miguel Paramo. Miguel Paramo killed Father Renteria's brother and raped Father Renteria's niece Ana. These events were merely taken in advance with Renteria's philosophy of "never hate anyone- but it was the death of Miguel that ruined Renteria's religious beliefs. Father Renteria performed the funeral ceremony and did not offer a final benediction partly for selfish reasons of revenge, using his pastoral robe as a barrier. Disregarding Renteria's arrogant remarks of Miguel, Pedro Paramo offers the gold to the priest as compensation, or a bribe, and says, "Weigh him and forgive him, as perhaps God has forgiven him.