Mexico City (Fides) – Between 1914 and 1934 during the religious persecution in Mexico, Catholic priests and laymen and women with deep love for the Church and the Virgin Mary, gave their lives for the Faith crying: “Long live Christ the King!” Religious persecution reached its apex between 1926 and 1929 when the then president Plutarco Elias Calles issued a law to implement a 1917 Constitution called “Ley Calles” regulating the number of ministers in a locality, outlawing foreign priests, limiting religious services and closing seminaries and convents. Faced with these restrictions and after frustrating negotiations with the authorities, the Mexican Bishops as a sign of protest decided to suspend all religious services.
In western Mexico, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Michoacan, Guanajuato and Colima, many Catholics took up arms to defend religious freedom even a few priests (20 according to historians). Among them was Fr Anacleto Gonzales Flores of Guadalajara (Jalisco) imprisoned with three Vargas Gonzales brothers Jorge, Ramon and Florencio. Just before the execution, the three asked Anacleto to hear their confession, but the priest replied: “This is not the time for confession. It is time to ask forgiveness and to forgive. A Father, not a judge is waiting for you. Your own blood will help wash away your guilt”.
The list of Christians who died for Christ is long and many more are nameless. It includes 22 diocesan priests and three young lay men who will be canonized on May 21. The first of these is parish priest Cristobal Magallanes. A case apart, but of the same period was Jesuit Fr Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez. Arrested after an attack on General Alvaro Obregon on November 13 1927, the priest was shot at the police headquarters. His name is among the beatified.
In 1929, after negotiations between president Emilio Portes Gil and two Bishops, Leopoldo Ruiz y Florez and Pascual Diaz, with the mediation of US Ambassador Dwight Morrow, a peace agreement was reached which included the non application of the Calles regulations, which were however not abrogated.
When the fighters agreed to lay down their weapons because religious services were to be resumed the so-called War of Christ came to an end. Nevertheless many “Cristeros”, after disarming, were brutally murdered by the local authorities.
However persecution of Catholics continued in some regions, such as Tabasco, where the governor Tomas Garrido Canabal demanded that priests had to be Mexican, over 40, have a good moral record and a wife.
The last victims fell on December 20, 1934 in Coyoacan when a group of armed men, led by Garrido Canabal opened fire on the faithful as they left the Church after Mass. One of the victims was Maria de la Luz Camacho, 27 lay catechists, whose beatification cause is in process. (R. A. ) (5/5/2000)