El Crimen del Padre Amaro

Recently ordained a priest, 24-year-old Father Amaro (Bernal) is sent to a small parish church in Los Reyes, Mexico, to assist the aging Father Benito (Gracia). Benito, for years a fixture in the church as well as the community, welcomes Amaro into a new life of unseen challenges. Upon arriving in Los Reyes, Father Amaro meets Amelia (Talancón), a beautiful 16-year-old girl whose religious devotion soon becomes helplessly entangled in a growing attraction to the new priest. Amelia is quickly following in the footsteps of her mother, Sanjuanera (Aragón), who has been engaged in a long-time affair with Father Benito. Amaro soon discovers that corruption and the Church are old acquaintances in Los Reyes. Father Benito has been receiving financial help from the region’s drug lord in the construction of a new health clinic, while Father Natalio (Alcázar), another priest in the diocese, is suspected of assisting guerrilla troops in the highlands. These transgressions are exposed in a newspaper article penned by Amelia’s jealous ex-suitor, now a journalist for a respected newspaper, and scandal hits the town. The diocese, using its considerable political sway, strong-arms the newspaper into publishing a retraction.

Meanwhile, Amelia and Father Amaro have fallen in love and have begun a passionate sexual relationship. Amelia asks him to leave the priesthood to marry her, but Los Reyes has opened Amaro’s eyes to the power the Church can offer an ambitious young priest. As things become complicated in the small community, the walls around Father Amaro begin to crumble. Torn between the divine and the carnal, the righteous and the unjust, Father Amaro must summon the strength to choose which life he will lead.