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Dio Wheeling-Charleston“¡Viva Cristo Rey! ¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!” Long live Christ the King! Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!
This was the cry of the Christeros, peasant Catholics who opposed the fierce political and anti-Catholic oppression inflicted by the Mexican government on its citizens in the early twentieth century.
On May 21, we remember St. Cristóbal (Christopher) Magallanes Jara and his 24 companions who were killed during the Cristero War of the 1920s in Mexico.
It was an era when Catholics literally put their lives on the line just to go to Mass.
The Mexican government was violently anti-Catholic. Religious persecution began around 1914, when restrictions for religious and the Catholic religion came into law.
The efforts to push out Catholicism from the country only worsened over the next decade. The government leaders believed the Catholic faith was a threat to their power. Religious were banned from wearing their clerics outside of church.
Any Catholics who resisted or criticized the government were put in jail and often brutally killed. Catholic schools, monasteries, seminaries, and convents were all closed.
Foreign priests were forced to leave the country.
Prior to the war there were more than 4,500 priests in Mexico compared to the estimated less than 350 who remained during that time. Church property was taken over by the Mexican government too.
The saints we celebrate on this feast day were all priests like St. Cristóbal, except for three who were proud Catholic laymen. The 25 did not die together but in eight different Mexican states. The 22 priests were killed for offering the sacraments. Saint Cristóbal remained a faithful servant of God and not only continued to celebrate Mass and the sacraments in hiding, but was also secretly preparing seminarians for the priesthood after their seminary was closed. He did so within his parish in Totatiche (which still exists today). Historians note that he did not join the Cristeros rebels. He opposed a violent resolution.
The Cristeros were a group of more than 50,000 Mexican men who chose to fight for their religious freedom. Their name came from their motto, “Long live Christ the King (Viva Cristo Rey)!” They believed the only end to the hateful regime would have to come from a show of unity and physical resistance.
It is estimated about 90,000 Catholics and their supporters died under the force of hateful government before it backed down from its total suppression of religious freedom.
Saint Cristóbal and his companions are examples of true martyrs for all of us who take our religious freedom for granted.
Saint Cristóbal, called upon Jesus, Mary, and the saints to come to the aid of Christ’s people. Even the Cristeros war cry in this time of persecution was an affirmation to her and her intercession:
“The Virgin Mary is our protector and defender when there is something to fear,
She will defeat the demons crying ‘Long live Christ the King!’
She will defeat the demons crying ‘Long live Christ the King!’
Soldiers of Christ let us follow the flag that the Cross shows the army of God!
Let us follow the flag crying, ‘Long live Christ the King!’”
Just before St. Cristóbal was murdered by his government he said, “I am innocent and die innocent. I absolve with all my heart who seek my death and ask God that my blood bring peace to a divided Mexico.”
St. Cristóbal and companions, pray for us.
