Mexican Martyrdom

23rd November is also the anniversary of the martyrdom of Fr. Miguel Agustin Pro, executed during what Graham Greene described at the time as "the fiercest persecution of religion anywhere since the reign of Elizabeth".

Ten years before Spain's heroic Catholic uprising against the Masonic and Communist persecution of the Church and Her faithful, the Catholics of Mexico arose in a defensive war against the tyranny of the Masonic and Communist regime that had launched a great persecution of the Church in Mexico.

Some 40,000 Catholic priests, religious and faithful lay down their earthly lives in defence of the Faith during the Cristero War.

A 14 year old Cristero martyr, Blessed Jose Luis Sanchez del Rio wrote a note to his Aunt. "I have been condemned to death. At 8:30, the moment I have looked forward to so much will arrive".

"At 11 o'clock Jose was taken to army headquarters a block away from the church where, without trial, his road to Calvary began. With barbaric cruelty the soles of his feet were sliced off. Then, hands bound behind his back, he was forced by Picazo's thugs and some soldiers to walk the stony road to the cemetery, about a mile away.

A small group of friends and relatives followed behind, including Jose's mother and some of the children who knew him. To this day, surviving witnesses remember the bloodstained footprints left by Jose Luis. In an effort to keep him from waking the town with his shouts, he was mocked, stabbed with small knives, and hit with the butt of a gun so hard that his jaw was broken.

Although moaning with pain he kept shouting loudly, 'Viva Cristo Rey! Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe'!

The soldiers stopped him every so often, urging, 'If you say, 'Death to Christ the King, we'll let you live'. But his response was unswerving: 'Viva Cristo Rey!' "