The role of religion in the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez plays a big part in the main event of the novel. The society in which the story takes place is on with close ties to the Catholic religion. Part of the Catholic religion is the belief that a woman's virginity should be saved until she is married. In societies like these you either are a whore or you are not, this title usually depends on your economic status more than your sexual status. .
The importance of the church is greatly stressed in this novel, as it is it very important in most Latin American communities. It showed a great deal in the exaggerated preparations they made for the bishop's visit to the town. It was funny though because he didn't get off the boat the previous years when he visited he just offered blessings from the boat, and for some reason they thought he was going to get off the boat this year but he didn't, again offered his blessings from the boat and off he went. The obvious showing of strong Catholicism would be that when Angela Vicario's secret that she wasn't a virgin when she was married was discovered, the brothers actually decided they were going to kill a man. I think their decisions to kill Santiago Nasar, the man who allegedly took their sister Angela Vicario's virginity, arrived mostly from societal pressures because that was what was expected of them. It seems like the characters lack individuality and communal values run the towns people's thoughts. .
I think religion in this novel is hypocritical, starting with that act of the bishop letting the people of the community down by not stopping his boat to bless them. Santiago Nasar was murdered for someone else's evil act, like being murderer for the town's sins. And when the autopsy on Nasar's body was performed they didn't even have a doctor do it, they had Father Carmen do it who knew nothing about what he was doing and totally mutilated the body.
