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Again, Greene replaces the formality of theology with the human virtue of humility. Padre Jose steadfastly refuses to hear the condemned fugitive's confession, and the priest worries that hostages might be shot and die without receiving penance. The Fellowses have long ago lost the ability to communicate the mestizo threatens to use the guise of Confession to trap the priest into admitting his ministry and the priest's death is occasioned by his return to a police state to shrive Calver. If, as we have seen, the characters in this novel are unable to symbolically receive Communion, neither can they symbolically "confess" to one another. The mouths of the characters, except for the pious woman in the jail cell, are unfit for the reception of the Eucharist. All of this Communion symbolism is reinforced by the many references to teeth in the novel. On one level, this novel traces the priest's realization that Communion, in the theological sense, is not as important as compassion and human understanding. Later, he associates Coral Fellows' name with the gemstones worn by girls after their First Communion. The priest is as ineffectual in this setting as he was years before at Concepción, and his memory constantly returns to his pompous strictures at the First Communion celebration. Here, the Governor's cousin and the jefe drink all of the precious wine, leaving the priest with only brandy, which is unusable in the Consecration. The wine-buying episode in the hotel room exemplifies, symbolically, the priest's inability to carry out his clerical function -that is, to distribute the Eucharist.

In like manner, he is prohibited from "communicating" fully with Maria in a marriage because he is a priest. Maria provides all of the ingredients for him to celebrate Mass, but the priest must hurry the Sacrifice because of the arrival of the police. Throughout the novel, Greene cites the pathos of priestly celibacy in the priest's inability to communicate truly with Maria, the mother of his child. Both of their outdated pictures hang in the police station the photograph of the priest is one taken at a First Communion party long ago. The American outlaw, Calver, and the nameless priest exist in a mystical, parallel communion throughout The Power and the Glory. Later, the crucible, which he uses in his dentistry is used to blend a cheapened quality of gold, just as the priest's chalice is symbolically defective - that is, chipped. At the beginning of the novel, the dentist Tench pours symbolic wine (brandy) for the priest to drink, as he symbolically usurps the role of celebrant.

This novel is unified partially by the failing efforts of several characters to communicate significantly with one another, and Greene uses the metaphor of the Communion of the Mass, the Eucharist, to delineate their frustrated attempts.