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Cristero War

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Military History and War

   The struggle between church and state in Mexico broke out in armed
   conflict during the Cristero War (also known as the Cristiada) of 1926
   to 1929. This was a popular uprising against the anti-Catholic Mexican
   government of the time, set off specifically by the anti-clerical
   provisions of the Mexican Constitution of 1917.

   After a period of peaceful resistance, a number of skirmishes took
   place in 1926. The formal rebellion began on January 1, 1927 with the
   rebels calling themselves Cristeros because they felt they were
   fighting for Christ himself. Just as the Cristeros began to hold their
   own against the federal forces, the rebellion was ended by diplomatic
   means, in large part due to the efforts of U.S. Ambassador Dwight
   Whitney Morrow.
   The Cristero War was brought about in response to the anticlerical laws
   of Plutarco Elías Calles
   The Cristero War was brought about in response to the anticlerical laws
   of Plutarco Elías Calles

The 1917 Constitution

   Five articles of the 1917 Constitution of Mexico were particularly
   aimed at reducing the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexican
   life. Article 3 demanded secular education in schools. Article 5
   outlawed monastic religious orders. Article 24 forbade public worship
   outside of church buildings, while Article 27 restricted religious
   organizations' rights to own property. Finally, Article 130 took away
   basic civil rights of members of the clergy: priests and religious
   leaders were prevented from wearing their habits, were denied the right
   to vote, and were not permitted to comment on public affairs in the
   press.

   The anticlerical mindset of the government extended also to superficial
   changes made to place names to secularize them. For instance, the state
   of Vera Cruz(true cross) was renamed Veracruz.

Background to rebellion

   When the anti-Catholic measures were enacted in 1917, the President of
   Mexico was Venustiano Carranza. Carranza was overthrown by the
   machinations of his one-time ally Álvaro Obregón in 1919, who succeeded
   to the presidency in late 1920. While sharing the anti-clerical
   sentiments of Carranza, he applied the measures selectively, only in
   areas where Catholic sentiment was weakest.

   This uneasy "truce" between the government and the Church ended with
   the election of Plutarco Elías Calles in 1924. Calles applied the
   anti-Catholic laws stringently throughout the country and added his own
   anti-Catholic legislation. In June 1926, he signed the "Law for
   Reforming the Penal Code", known unofficially as the "Calles Law". This
   provided specific penalties for priests and religious who dared to
   violate the provisions of the 1917 Constitution. For instance, wearing
   clerical garb earned a fine of 500 pesos (approximately 250 U.S.
   dollars at the time); a priest who criticized the government could be
   imprisoned for five years.

Peaceful resistance

   In response to these measures, Catholic organizations began to
   intensify their resistance. The most important of these groups was the
   National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty, founded in 1924.
   This was joined by the Mexican Association of Catholic Youth (founded
   1913) and the Popular Union, a Catholic political party founded in
   1925.

   On July 11, 1926, the Mexican bishops voted to suspend all public
   worship in Mexico in response to the Calles Law. This suspension was to
   take place on August 1. On July 14, they endorsed plans for an economic
   boycott against the government, which was particularly effective in
   west-central Mexico (the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes,
   Zacatecas). Catholics in these areas stopped attending movies and plays
   and using public transportation and Catholic teachers stopped teaching
   in secular schools.

   However, this boycott collapsed by October 1926, in large part due to
   lack of support among wealthy Catholics, who were themselves losing
   money due to the boycott. The wealthy were generally disliked because
   of this, and the reputation was worsened when they paid the federal
   army for protection and called on the police to break the picket lines.

   The Catholic bishops meanwhile worked to have the offending articles of
   the Constitution amended. Pope Pius XI explicitly approved this means
   of resistance. However, the Calles government considered this seditious
   behaviour and had many churches closed. In September the episcopate
   submitted a proposal for the amendment of the constitution, but this
   was rejected by Congress on September 22, 1926.

Escalation of violence

   In Guadalajara, Jalisco, on August 3, 1926, some 400 armed Catholics
   shut themselves up in the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in that city.
   They were involved in a shootout with federal troops from there, and
   surrendered only when they ran out of ammunition. According to U.S.
   consular sources, this battle resulted in 18 dead and 40 injured.

   The following day, in Sahuayo, Michoacán, 240 government soldiers
   stormed the parish church. The parish priest and his vicar were killed
   in the ensuing violence. On August 14, government agents staged a purge
   of the Chalchihuites, Zacatecas, chapter of the Association of Catholic
   Youth and executed their spiritual advisor, Father Luis Bátiz Sainz.

   From here actions begin to move very rapidly. A band of ranchers under
   the leadership of Pedro Quintanar, upon hearing that Father Bátiz had
   been killed, seized the local treasury and declared themselves in
   rebellion. At the height of their rebellion, they held a region
   including the entire northern part of Jalisco.

   Another uprising was led by the mayor of Pénjamo, Guanajuato, Luis
   Navarro Origel, beginning on September 28. His men were defeated by
   federal troops in the open land around the town, but retreated into the
   mountains, where they continued as guerrillas. This was followed by an
   uprising in Durango led by Trinidad Mora on September 29 and an October
   4 rebellion in southern Guanajuato, led by former general Rodolfo
   Gallegos. Both of these rebel leaders were forced to adopt guerrilla
   tactics, as they were no match for the federal troops on open ground.

   Meanwhile, the rebels in Jalisco (particularly the region northeast of
   Guadalajara) quietly began gathering forces. This region became the
   main focal point of the rebellion led by 27-year-old René Capistran
   Garza, leader of the Mexican Association of Catholic Youth. The
   rebellion began on January 1, 1927.

The Cristero war

   The formal rebellion began with a manifesto sent by Garza on New Year's
   Day, titled A la Nación (To the Nation). This declared that "the hour
   of battle has sounded" and "the hour of victory belongs to God". With
   the declaration, the state of Jalisco, which had seemed to be quiet
   since the Guadalajara church uprising, exploded. Bands of rebels moving
   in the "Los Altos" region northeast of Guadalajara began seizing
   villages, often armed with only ancient muskets and clubs. The
   Cristeros' battle cry was ¡Viva Cristo Rey! ¡Viva la Virgen de
   Guadalupe! ("Long live Christ the King! Long live the Virgin of
   Guadalupe!")

   The Calles government did not take the threat very seriously at first.
   The rebels did well against the agraristas (a rural militia recruited
   throughout Mexico) and the Social Defense forces (local militia), but
   were always defeated by the federal troops who guarded the important
   cities. At this time, the federal army numbered 79,759 men. When
   Jalisco federal commander General Jesús Ferreira moved on the rebels,
   he calmly stated that "it will be less a campaign than a hunt."

   However, these rebels, who had had no previous military experience for
   the most part, planned their battles well. The most successful rebel
   leaders were Jesús Degollado (a druggist), Victoriano Ramírez (a ranch
   hand), and two priests, Aristeo Pedroza and José Reyes Vega. In total,
   five priests took up arms.

   Recent scholarship suggests that for many Cristeros, religious
   motivations for rebellion were reinforced by other political and
   material concerns. Participants in the uprising often came from rural
   communities that had suffered from the government's land reform
   policies since 1920, or otherwise felt threatened by recent political
   and economic changes. Many agraristas and other government supporters
   were also fervent Catholics.

   Whether the Cristeros' actions were or were not supported by the
   episcopate or the Pope has been a subject of controversy. Officially,
   the Mexican episcopate never supported the rebellion, but by several
   accounts, the rebels had the episcopate's acknowledgement that their
   cause was legitimate.

   The episcopate did not, in any event, condemn the rebels. Bishop José
   Francisco Orozco y Jiménez of Guadalajara remained with the rebels;
   while formally rejecting armed rebellion, he was unwilling to leave his
   flock. Many modern historians consider him to have been the real head
   of the movement.

   On February 23, 1927, the Cristeros defeated federal troops for the
   first time at San Francisco del Rincón, Guanajuato, followed by another
   victory at San Julián, Jalisco. The rebellion was almost extinguished,
   however, on April 19, when Father Vega led a raid against a train
   thought to be carrying a shipment of money. In the shootout, his
   brother was killed, and Father Vega had the train cars doused in
   gasoline and set afire, killing 51 civilians.

   This atrocity turned public opinion against the Cristeros. The
   government began moving the civilians back into the population centers
   and prevented them from providing supplies to the rebels. By the
   summer, the rebellion was almost completely quelled. Garza resigned
   from his position at the head of the rebellion in July, after a failed
   attempt to raise funds in the United States of America.

   The rebellion was given new life by the efforts of Victoriano Ramírez,
   generally known as "El Catorce" (the fourteen). Legend has it the
   nickname originated because during jailbreak he killed all fourteen
   members of the posse sent after him. He then sent a message to the
   mayor—his uncle—telling him that in the future he had better not send
   so few men after him.

   El Catorce was illiterate, but a natural guerrilla leader. He brought
   the rebellion back to life, enabling the National League for the
   Defense of Religious Liberty to select a general, a mercenary who
   demanded twice the salary of a federal general. Enrique Gorostieta was
   so alienated from Catholicism that he made fun of his own troops'
   religion. Despite his lack of piety, he trained the rebel troops well,
   producing disciplined units and officers. Gradually, the Cristeros
   began to gain the upper hand.

   Both priest-commanders, Father Vega and Father Pedroza, were born
   soldiers. Father Vega was not a typical priest, and was reputed to
   drink heavily and routinely ignore his vow of chastity. Father Pedroza,
   by contrast, was rigidly moral and faithful to his priestly vows.
   However, the fact that the two took up arms at all is problematic from
   the point of view of Catholic sacramental theology.

   On June 21, 1927, the first brigade of female Cristeros was formed in
   Zapopan. They named themselves for Saint Joan of Arc. The brigade began
   with 17 women, but soon grew to 135 members. Its mission was to obtain
   money, weapons, provisions, and information for the combatant men; they
   also cared for the wounded. By March 1928, there were some 10,000 women
   involved. Many smuggled weapons into the combat zones by carrying them
   in carts filled with grain or cement. By the end of the war, they
   numbered some 25,000.

   The Cristeros maintained the upper hand throughout 1928, and in 1929,
   the federal government faced a new crisis: a revolt within Army ranks,
   led by Arnulfo R. Gómez in Veracruz. The Cristeros tried to take
   advantage of this with an attack on Guadalajara in late March. This
   failed, but the rebels did manage to take Tepatitlán on April 19.
   Father Vega was killed in that battle.

   However, the military rebellion was quickly put down, and the Cristeros
   were soon facing divisions within their own ranks. Mario Valdés, widely
   believed by historians to have been a federal spy, managed to stir up
   sentiment against El Catorce leading to his execution before a rigged
   court-martial.

   On June 2, Gorostieta was killed when he was ambushed by a federal
   patrol. However the rebels had some 50,000 men under arms by this point
   and seemed poised to draw out the rebellion for a long time.

Diplomacy and the uprising

   Before and after the successes had by the rebels and the support of
   Bishop Orozco y Jiménez, the Mexican bishops supported the Cristeros
   (this is in dispute- the only comprehensive history of this movement,
   "The Cristero Rebellion" indicates that with a couple of exceptions the
   episcopacy was hostile to the movement). The bishops were expelled from
   Mexico after Father Vega's savage attack on the train, but continued to
   try and influence the war's outcome from outside the country

   The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, in October 1927, was Dwight Whitney
   Morrow. He initiated a series of breakfast meetings with Calles where
   the two would discuss a whole range of problems, from the religious
   uprising, to oil and irrigation. This earned him the nickname "ham and
   eggs diplomat" in U.S. papers. Morrow wanted the conflict to come to an
   end both for humanitarian reasons, and to help find a solution to the
   oil problem in the U.S. He was aided in his efforts by Father John
   Burke of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. The Vatican was also
   actively suing for peace.

   Calles' term as president was coming to an end and president-elect
   Álvaro Obregón was scheduled to take office on December 1. However, he
   was assassinated by a Catholic radical two weeks before he was to take
   office, gravely damaging the peace process.

   Congress named Emilio Portes Gil interim president in September, with
   an election to be held in November 1929. Portes Gil was more open to
   the Church than Calles had been, allowing Morrow and Burke to
   reinitiate their peace initiative. Portes Gil told a foreign
   correspondent on May 1 that "the Catholic clergy, when they wish, may
   renew the exercise of their rites with only one obligation, that they
   respect the laws of the land."

   The next day, exiled Archbishop Leopoldo Ruíz y Flores issued a
   statement that the hierarchy had elected to suspend worship because it
   "was not able to accept laws that are enforced in my country." That is,
   the bishops would not demand the repeal of the laws, only their more
   lenient application.

   Morrow managed to bring the parties to agreement on June 21, 1929. The
   pact he drafted, called the arreglos (arrangements) would allow worship
   to resume in Mexico and granted three concessions to the Catholics:
   only priests who were named by hierarchical superiors would be required
   to register, religious instruction in the churches (but not in the
   schools) would be permitted, and all citizens, including the clergy,
   would be allowed to make petitions to reform the laws. But the most
   important part of it was that the church would recover the right to use
   its properties, and priests recovered their rights to live on such
   property. Legally speaking, the church was not allowed to own real
   estate, and its former facilities remained federal property. However,
   the church took control over them, and the government never again tried
   to take these properties back. It was a convenient arrangement for both
   parties and Church support for the rebels ended.

   The arreglos led to an unusual end to the war. In the last two years,
   many more anticlerical officers who were hostile to the federal
   government for other reasons had joined the rebels. When the arreglos
   were made known, only a minority of the rebels went home, those who
   felt their battle had been won. As the rebels themselves were not
   consulted in these talks, most of them felt betrayed and some continued
   to fight. The church then threathened rebels with excommunication, and
   gradually the rebellion died out.

   The officers, fearing that they would be tried as traitors, tried to
   keep the rebellion alive. This attempt failed and many were captured
   and shot, while others escaped to San Luis Potosí, where General
   Saturnino Cedillo gave them refuge.

   On June 27, the church bells rang in Mexico for the first time in
   almost three years.

   The war had claimed the lives of some 90,000: 56,882 on the federal
   side, 30,000 Cristeros, and numerous civilians and Cristeros who were
   killed in anticlerical raids after the war's end. As promised by Portes
   Gil, the Calles Law remained on the books, but no organized federal
   attempts to enforce it were put into action. Nonetheless, in several
   localities, persecution of Catholic priests continued based on local
   officials' interpretations of the law. The anticlerical provisions of
   the Constitution remain in place as of 2005, though they are no longer
   enforced.

Cristero War saints

   The Catholic Church has recognized several of those killed in
   connection with the Cristero rebellion as martyrs. Perhaps the
   best-known is Blessed Miguel Pro, SJ. This Jesuit priest was executed
   by firing squad on November 23, 1927, without benefit of a trial, on
   the grounds that his priestly activities were in defiance of the
   government. The Calles government hoped to use images of the execution
   to scare the rebels into surrender, but the photos had the opposite
   effect. Upon seeing the photos, which the government had printed in all
   the newspapers, the Cristeros were inspired with a desire to follow
   Father Pro into martyrdom for Christ. His beatification occurred in
   1988.

   On May 21, 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized a group of 25 martyrs from
   this period. (They had been beatified on November 22, 1992.) For the
   most part, these were priests who did not take up arms, but refused to
   leave their flocks, and were executed by federal forces.

   To cite just one example (mentioned above in the history), Father Luis
   Bátiz Sainz was the parish priest in Chalchihuites and a member of the
   Knights of Columbus. He was known for his devotion to the Eucharist and
   for his prayer for martyrdom: "Lord, I want to be a martyr; even though
   I am your unworthy servant, I want to pour out my blood, drop by drop,
   for your name." In 1926, shortly before the closing of the churches, he
   was denounced as a conspirator against the government because of his
   connections with the National League for the Defense of Religious
   Liberty, which was preparing an armed uprising. A squad of soldiers
   raided the private house he was staying in on August 14, taking him
   captive. He was executed without trial together with three youths of
   the Mexican Association of Catholic Youths.

   Thirteen additional victims of the anti-Catholic regime have been
   declared martyrs by the Catholic Church, paving the way to their
   beatification. These are primarily lay people, including the
   14-year-old José Sánchez del Río. The requirement that they did not
   take up arms, which was applied to the priest martyrs, does not apply
   to the lay people, though it had to be shown that they were taking up
   arms in self-defense.

   On November 20th, 2005 on Jalisco Stadium in Guadalajara, Mexico, these
   13 martyrs were beatified by Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins.

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