For Greater Glory, Not Just a Movie

Mexicans must know their history and take pride in the fact that they have long been fighting tyranny.....

This is a compilation of facts gleaned from the web on this time in history.

Dutch 

Mexico’s Cristero War (1926-29) was a grassroots rebellion against the administration of Plucarto Elias Calles, who provoked the Catholic community by arresting priests and forcing the closure of all churches with military force. He sought to eliminate – Catholicism from the country.

In 1914, President Carranza, put in place by the US, inaugurated a period of open persecution: priests were massacred (160 were killed in Mexico in February, 1915).

John Lind, one of Woodrow Wilson's advisors, rejoiced over the news: "Great news! The more priests they kill in Mexico, the happier I shall be!" An American pastor, indignant about the Molesting of the nuns in Vera Cruz, received this reply from Wilson's office: "After prostitution, the worst thing in Mexico is the Church. Both must disappear!"¹³

In 1926, the president and his clique launched a new offensive which they hoped to be definitive:

"Now there must be a psychological revolution," Calles declared. "We must penetrate and take hold of the minds of the children and the youth because they must belong to the revolution." The Christian schools were shut down, the congregations expelled, Christian trade unions forbidden, numerous churches confiscated and profaned (turned into stables or halls) or destroyed.

Public school attendance became mandatory, atheism was officially taught, and religious insignia (medals, crucifixes, statues, and pictures) were forbidden, even at home. God was even chased from the language! The use of such expressions as Adios, "If God wills," or "God forbid," was subject to a fine.

Lastly, the priests were "registered": some states (Mexico is a federal republic) required them to swear not to proselytize, others tried to command them to marry if they wished to continue in their function! Msgr. Carvana, the Apostolic Nuncio, protested; on May 12, 1926, he was exiled. Throughout the country, Catholic public figures were assassinated, girls coming out of church were kidnapped, imprisoned, raped.

On July 26, an elderly shopkeeper was coldly struck down by two policemen in civilian clothes. His crime? In his shop he had posted a sign reading Viva Cristo Rey! Long live Christ the King!

The Mexicans peacefully reacted to the persecution: they boycotted state-owned enterprises (tobacco purchases and railroad traffic were reduced by 74%, and in just a few weeks, the national bank suffered a 7 million peso loss), and they also circulated a protest petition signed by 2 million (out of a population of 15 million).

But Christians have something even better than that, they have prayer, and the country was crisscrossed by gigantic penitential processions: 10,000, 15,000 faithful implored God for their country. The powers that be could not tolerate that; their heavy machine guns dispersed the processions, and the first martyrs fell, singing.

From the first days of August, the Mexican people, deprived of their priests (only 200 remained with their faithful) and of their bishops (only 1 remained out of 38) used force to resist the inventorying of the closed churches and the accompanying sacrileges.

Their rallying cry was that of the Mexican shopkeeper: "Long live Christ the King!"

To keep from hearing it, the Mexican Federal soldiers had only one solution: cut out the tongue of those Christians they were going to kill.

One of them wrote before dying: "We are going to perish. We will not see the victory, but Mexico needs all this blood for its purification....Christ will receive the homage which is due Him."

Blood flowed....Ireland broke its diplomatic relations with Mexico....No other state followed suit.

The Rising

In January 1927, Christs Army rose: 20,000 combatants (30,000 by the end of the year, and 50,000 in 1929); few arms

(a few rifles and carbines, but mostly hatchets, machetes, and sometimes simply sharpened sticks);

few horses; but all the people supporting them, offering them their money, and necessaries. A Cristero peasant recounted how they set out with songs and prayers on their lips:

We were 1,000, then 5,000, then more! Everyone set out as if to go to the harvest....We firmly intended to die, angry or not, but to die for Christ.

The old men and children, unarmed, followed behind the troops.

"The parents of Nemesio and Isidro Lopez did not want to see them depart for the war for fear that their flesh would go to feed coyotes and eagles; but they replied, "The coyotes may indeed eat our flesh, but our souls will ascend straight to heaven."²² Against them were 100 mobile columns of 1,000 men each, veritable "infernal columns" Supplied and financed by the US Military (light armored cars, tractor-drawn artillery, combat aircraft...). The first clashes were bloody massacres.

A Mexican Army officer wrote:

"They are more like pilgrims than soldiers. This isn't a military campaign, it's a hunting party!" The president himself predicted: "It will be wrapped up in less than two months."

But when a pilgrimage takes up arms, it becomes a crusade!

The Cristeros were able to equip themselves from the adversary, profiting from their cowardice or their corruption. The "Federales" were more like pillagers, drunk on tequila and marijuana, rather than soldiers worthy of the name.

On March 15, 1927, they were defeated at San Julian; at Puerto Obristo, they left 600 dead. In November, the military attache of the US began to worry about the success of the "fanatics," 40% of whose troops were now equipped with excellent Mausers recuperated from the enemy. How was it possible?

Miracles.....

A Christian general told how he arrived with 350 men who had been fasting for two days in a miserable hamlet of only 11 straw huts. He retired to write his report. Coming out, he saw his soldiers eating with gusto and an old woman with tears in her eyes saying over and over; "I just had a few biscuits, and yet there is enough for everyone, and what is left over is more than I had to begin with!"

A Cristero spy had spoken with the Federales:

They are sorcerers, and the one who commands them is a very valiant general mounted on a white horse, and he is accompanied by a woman. When we open fire on them, it has no effect, and when they approach us, we cannot do anything to them. They command the mist to conceal these accursed Cristeros.

There is no white horse, and there is no woman in our army. In truth, we believe that St. James and the most Blessed Virgin accompany us, and if we cannot see them, it is because we do not deserve to.

Marvelous Cristeros! While the Federal army recorded an average of 30,000 desertions annually, they did not experience a single case of treason. A cobbler, become sector chief, was contacted by the enemy who offered to spare his life and make him a colonel, answered:

"I am not fighting for a rank. I am fighting for Christ the King. As soon as the victory is won, I shall return to my shoes." He was killed in combat in March 1928.

With diabolic tenacity, Calles's men tried to make their prisoners apostatize, but in vain. Fr. Reyes was tortured for three days and two nights. This pastor of Totolan, born in very poor circumstances (as a child he hawked newspapers) had decided to remain at his post. That was enough to unleash the hatred of the Fed erals, who tortured him with fire.

"You say that God descends into your hands, well then, let Him descend and deliver you from ours!" his torturers taunted.

They finished him off with bullets on the evening of Holy Wednesday. One of them testified: "We had already lodged three or four bullets in him when he roused himself to cry out once more: 'Long live Christ the King!'

Who were these new crusaders? They were the people. As one Federale wrote: "We run no risk of making a mistake (by massacring one and all): they all resist." They were 95% rural folk: peasants, artisans, miners, muleteers, or rural landholders. There was, for instance, Luis Navarro Origel, with a degree in philosophy and a third-order Franciscan: in 1926, he took the lead of the men of the village where he was mayor. He declared: "I am going to kill for Christ those who kill Christ, and perhaps die for Him if need be; I am going to offer the blood of redemption." He fell at the head of his troops on August 10, 1928, at the age of 30.

The city folk who joined them were especially students and the women involved in the St. Joan of Arc Brigades. Some of these 25,000 heroines were only 14 years old. They acted as liaison agents or scouts, nurses, collectors of money or munitions in the arsenals where they infiltrated as workers! Woe to those who fell into the clutches of the Federates' hardened soldiers....But they never betrayed any information.

Beautiful youth of Mexico. José Sanchez was 13. In February 1928 he was surrounded by the Federales. He gave up his horse to the group leader who was wounded and covered his retreat. Running out of ammunition, he was captured. "Know it well," he said, "I am not surrendering, I have merely run out of ammo." He was slaughtered. A note was found in his pocket: "My dearest Mom: Here I am a captive, and they are going to kill me. I am happy. The only thing that troubles me is that you are going to cry. Don't cry. We shall meet again." Signed, José, killed for Christ the King.

Tomasino was a member of the executive committee of the ACJM (Mexican Catholic Youth Association) and prefect of the congregation of Mary. Arrested, he was offered his freedom if he talked. "Really, you would be making a mistake: free, I would continue to fight for Christ the King. For us, the fight for our freedom of worship is not optional." In August 1927, he was hanged. He was 17.

Manuel Bonilla, a student, kept a daily diary:

I well know that, to do great things, God uses littler ones, and that help does not come whence we were expecting it...I trust in God's goodness: all these sacrifices will not be in vain.

He was shot at 22 years of age, on Good Friday, 1927, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. In 1942, his body was discovered perfectly intact.

In 1926, President Calles began aggressive measures to repress religion. Many steps focused squarely on Catholicism, and Mexican bishops voted to suspend all public worship – a move that turned much of the population against the government and its imposition of religious restrictions.

Armed Catholics shut themselves into the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Guadalajara (in the Jalisco state), in August 1926; this move is generally recognized as one of the first events in an organized resistance to President Calles’ initiatives. The Guanajuato state, which Pope Benedict has included (and focused on) during his March 23-29, 2012, trip to Mexico and Cuba, was among the Mexican states to see the first battles in what would become known as the Cristero War.

Some historic accounts of the war include reports of miracles – among them a report of consecrated hosts flying through the sky in front of attacking federal soliders; and of a group of 350 Cristero fighters being fed by a woman who claimed to have only “a few biscuits, and yet there is enough for everyone, and what is left over is more than I had to begin with!”

Historic accounts indicate upwards of 50,000 Mexicans became Cristero fighters, with thousands of women joining the Brigades of St. Joan of Arc to provide logistical support to the armed uprising.
Dwight Whitney Morrow, U.S. ambassador to Mexico, intervened with President Calles beginning in late 1927 to end the conflict.

Mexico did not reestablish formal relations with the Vatican until 1992.