Book shares stories of key figures in Cristero War in 1920s

Reviewed by Sean Gallagher

It may surprise many Catholics living in the U.S. today that less than 100 years ago, dozens of clergy and laity were killed for their faith just across the southern border in Mexico.

In a secularist persecution, the Mexican government seized Church property, closed Catholic schools and sent nearly the entire Mexican episcopate into exile, mostly to San Antonio, Texas. The few who stayed continued to minister on the run, living in hiding.

The height of this persecution in 1920s also saw the first large-scale immigration of Mexicans to the U.S., nearly 250,000 fleeing during the period for safety and the freedom to practice their faith.

By 1926, the intensity of the persecution was sharp enough that the Mexican bishops suspended all public worship across the country as of Aug. 1 of that year.

Within a few months, large groups of Mexican Catholics had had enough and led an armed rebellion against their persecutors in a civil war known as the Cristiada. The Cristero fighters, as they were known, had as their battle cry, “Viva Cristo Rey!” (“Long live Christ the King!”)

Although the story of the Cristiada was told in part in the 2012 movie For Greater Glory, it did not draw large audiences.

A new book by Msgr. James Murphy of the Diocese of Sacramento, Calif., has the potential to open the eyes of contemporary readers to the fierceness of a persecution against the Church not so long ago and far away, and the courage and holiness shown by many Mexican Catholics in response to it.

Saints and Sinners in the Cristero War: Stories of Martyrdom from Mexico, with a forward by Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles, was published earlier this year by Ignatius Press.

Msgr. Murphy, who is now retired, earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, and served as his diocese’s communications director, the managing editor of its newspaper and pastor of three bilingual parishes. He also founded the first Spanish-language diocesan newspaper in the U.S. in 1979.

While the stories he tells of the saints and sinners of the Cristero War are compelling, Msgr. Murphy does so in the broader context of the rebellion as a whole, the history of Mexico that led up to it and how it was ultimately resolved, largely through the efforts of the U.S. ambassador to Mexico and an American priest.

Msgr. Murphy’s book is particularly relevant to the faithful in central and southern Indiana.

Many Mexicans who have immigrated to the U.S. and live in the archdiocese came from Jalisco, a state in west‑central Mexico where the anti-Catholic persecution and the resulting Cristero War were especially fierce.

And the many members of the Knights of Columbus in the archdiocese belong to a Catholic fraternal organization that made great efforts in the 1920s to raise awareness of Americans of the persecution south of the border and to move American government leaders to persuade their Mexican counterparts to bring it to an end.

Some of the saints Msgr. Murphy portrayed have been either beatified or canonized: Blessed Miguel Pro, St. Toribio Romo and Blessed Anacleto González Flores.

St. Toribio has an interesting contemporary relevance for many Hispanics who have immigrated to the U.S. across the southern border.

Msgr. Murphy recounts how many immigrants who were in danger of death in desert areas around the border encountered a man in black who led them to safety. When leaving them, he invited them to visit him in his hometown of Santa Ana in Jalisco.

When they traveled there, they discovered at the shrine of St. Toribio an image of the priest who was martyred in 1928 and canonized in 2000 that looked just like the man in black who had saved their lives.

Others have not yet been recognized as saints. They include Archbishop Francisco Orozco y Jiménez of Guadalajara and the many largely nameless members of the Women’s Brigade, who went to great lengths and braved many dangers to bring material support to the fighters.

Among the sinners described by

Msgr. Murphy are many Mexican government leaders of the time, including President Plutarco Elías Calles and Tomás Garrido Canabal, governor at the time of Tabasco, a state in southern Mexico where the persecution of the Church was particularly brutal.

But he also includes a priest among the sinners: Father José Reyes Vega, a priest of the Guadalajara Archdiocese who took up arms in the Cristero War directly against the orders of Archbishop Orozco who, while suffering great persecution himself, was wholly opposed to violent resistance to the government.

Father Vega, who became a general in the Cristero army, easily made it to the list of sinners for several reasons, not the least of which included his ordering of an attack on a train thought to be carrying a shipment of gold and money in which 51 civilians died.

The Cristero War did not end with a culminating battlefield victory by either side in the struggle. By 1929, the two sides had fought to a stalemate, even though government troops were easily superior to the ragtag Cristeros in numbers and armaments.

The conflict—and the heightened persecution that brought it about—came to an end in 1929 largely through the intervention of Dwight Morrow, who served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico, and Paulist Father John Burke, who earlier led the effort to start what later became the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In particular, it was the positive working relationship that Father Burke built with President Calles, despite the latter’s strong anti-Catholicism, that paved the way for peace.

Msgr. Murphy describes well the careful diplomatic tightrope walked by Morrow and Father Burke. Even though such details can be dry for many readers, Msgr. Murphy recounts them in ways that keeps their attention.

The entire lack of involvement of the Mexican bishops in the secretive peace process until close to its end, and then only in a limited manner, suggests an approach to theology in marked contrast to that commonly held today.

Since at least the Second Vatican Council, the theological understanding of the Church has emphasized a communion among all the faithful. From this is understood that, while the bishop of Rome is still recognized as the universal shepherd of the Church, all bishops form with him a college of co-equals, serving (in most cases) as the chief shepherd of their local Church.

Such an understanding of the episcopate seemed wholly absent in Father Burke’s peace efforts in which the Mexican bishops were largely kept in the dark and on the sidelines.

At the start of his book, Msgr. Murphy explained that he was motivated to write Saints and Sinners of the Cristero War in part because of a lack of works in English that tell the stories of key figures in the struggle.

That hole has now been ably filled by Msgr. Murphy who tells English-language audiences the compelling stories of these men and women in the broader context of Mexican history.
 

(Sean Gallagher is a reporter for The Criterion.) †