Glorious martyrdoms from the Cristero War in Mexico (1926-1929)

 

Note. The Marías Islands were discovered in the 16th century by Diego García Colio and Juan de Villagómez at the end of 1526 or at the beginning of 1527. There are four islands. They are located about 112 km from the port of San Blas Nayarit in the Pacific Ocean, it was the same discoverers who gave the islands their names.

The largest of the islands is called María Madre (145,282 km²) has a maximum height of 616 m asl, and housed the Islas Marías Federal Penal Colony established in 1905 and suppressed in 2019. The other largest islands are María Magdalena (70.44 km²), María Cleofás (19,818 km²) and San Juanito (9,105 km²); the total area of ​​the islands is 244.97 km².2 In 2010 they were declared by UNESCO as a biosphere reserve.

In the Marias Islands

One of the martyrdoms devised by the Roman persecutors against the Christians of the primitive Church, and that despite the oblivion or ignorance in which many of the names of those glorious heroes of Christianity have remained, history has collected in a balloon, and Referring to future generations, for the greater splendor of the Catholic Church, it is the relegation of Christians to the hard work of the mines in distant countries, solely for the crime of worshiping Jesus Christ as God, King and Lord of the world. Those tyrants, many times when a Christian of great esteem fell into their power for their virtue or their position in the Church, such as the Roman Pontiff, used to add to the banishment and punishment of forced labor, the ferocious cruelty of cutting the tendons of their the left hamstring, so that, due to the limp and uselessness of his leg, the work was more painful, although they publicly declared that this torture was to prevent the Christian condemned to the mine from escaping easily. Always lies and hypocrisy! Undoubted sign of diabolical action! The Mexican tyrants, to whose credit we cannot even find anything, no matter how little, of the material greatness of the forgers of that great Roman Empire, equaled them and many times surpassed them in sadism and brutality. And we should not be surprised at this, since one of the illusory aspirations of modern communism is hatred of civilization, and the return of societies to the era of barbarism, from which the doctrine of Christ was brought to the world, applied and taught by the Catholic Church. although they publicly declared that this torture was to prevent the Christian sentenced to the mine from escaping easily. Always lies and hypocrisy! Undoubted sign of diabolical action! The Mexican tyrants, to whose credit we cannot even find anything, no matter how little, of the material greatness of the forgers of that great Roman Empire, equaled them and many times surpassed them in sadism and brutality. And we should not be surprised at this, since one of the illusory aspirations of modern communism is hatred of civilization, and the return of societies to the era of barbarism, from which the doctrine of Christ was brought to the world, applied and taught by the Catholic Church. although they publicly declared that this torture was to prevent the Christian sentenced to the mine from escaping easily. Always lies and hypocrisy! Undoubted sign of diabolical action! The Mexican tyrants, to whose credit we cannot even find anything, no matter how little, of the material greatness of the forgers of that great Roman Empire, equaled them and many times surpassed them in sadism and brutality. And we should not be surprised at this, since one of the illusory aspirations of modern communism is hatred of civilization, and the return of societies to the era of barbarism, from which the doctrine of Christ was brought to the world, applied and taught by the Catholic Church. Always lies and hypocrisy! Undoubted sign of diabolical action! The Mexican tyrants, to whose credit we cannot even find anything, no matter how little, of the material greatness of the forgers of that great Roman Empire, equaled them and many times surpassed them in sadism and brutality. And we should not be surprised at this, since one of the illusory aspirations of modern communism is hatred of civilization, and the return of societies to the era of barbarism, from which the doctrine of Christ was brought to the world, applied and taught by the Catholic Church. Always lies and hypocrisy! Undoubted sign of diabolical action! The Mexican tyrants, to whose credit we cannot even find anything, no matter how little, of the material greatness of the forgers of that great Roman Empire, equaled them and many times surpassed them in sadism and brutality. And we should not be surprised at this, since one of the illusory aspirations of modern communism is hatred of civilization, and the return of societies to the era of barbarism, from which the doctrine of Christ was brought to the world, applied and taught by the Catholic Church. they equaled and often surpassed them in sadism and brutality. And we should not be surprised at this, since one of the illusory aspirations of modern communism is hatred of civilization, and the return of societies to the era of barbarism, from which the doctrine of Christ was brought to the world, applied and taught by the Catholic Church. they equaled and often surpassed them in sadism and brutality. And we should not be surprised at this, since one of the illusory aspirations of modern communism is hatred of civilization, and the return of societies to the era of barbarism, from which the doctrine of Christ was brought to the world, applied and taught by the Catholic Church.

The communists of the first hour, such as Weishaupt, Babeuf, Bakunin, Marx and others of their kind, seriously affirm in their writings and preaching that the triumph of communism will be marked by the destruction of cities, works of art, of religious ideas, of individual property, of respect for the human person and, in a word, of everything that constitutes order, born of Christian ideas. And if in Russia today it has not reached such enormity, it is because the communism of Stalin, Litvinoff, Molotov and cronies, of authentic communism, preserves only the essence, the very substance of the attack on the Christian idea, of destruction of the Christian moral order; and in the disguises with which the supporters of the communist revolution covered themselves, they have made such changes that it has become a capitalism, much more ferocious than liberal capitalism, but capitalism nonetheless. The slavery of the concentration camps dedicated to forced labor is already known to all those who voluntarily do not close their eyes and ears to the testimonies that come to us from that same unfortunate Russia and its satellite countries. The Mexican communism of the time of Calles, as we have already heard from the testimony of a foreigner, Mr. Francis MacCullagh, was filling the prisons of the cities with Catholics, whose only crime was having attended mass or having done some other demonstration of being Catholic, right inside their homes, whose constitutional guarantees were shamelessly violated by those who claimed to be law-abiding and defenders. The slavery of the concentration camps dedicated to forced labor is already known to all those who voluntarily do not close their eyes and ears to the testimonies that come to us from that same unfortunate Russia and its satellite countries. The Mexican communism of the time of Calles, as we have already heard from the testimony of a foreigner, Mr. Francis MacCullagh, was filling the prisons of the cities with Catholics, whose only crime was having attended mass or having done some other demonstration of being Catholic, right inside their homes, whose constitutional guarantees were shamelessly violated by those who claimed to be law-abiding and defenders. The slavery of the concentration camps dedicated to forced labor is already known to all those who voluntarily do not close their eyes and ears to the testimonies that come to us from that same unfortunate Russia and its satellite countries. The Mexican communism of the time of Calles, as we have already heard from the testimony of a foreigner, Mr. Francis MacCullagh, was filling the prisons of the cities with Catholics, whose only crime was having attended mass or having done some other demonstration of being Catholic, right inside their homes, whose constitutional guarantees were shamelessly violated by those who claimed to be law-abiding and defenders. it is already known to all those who voluntarily do not close their eyes and ears to the testimonies that come to us from that same unfortunate Russia and its satellite countries. The Mexican communism of the time of Calles, as we have already heard from the testimony of a foreigner, Mr. Francis MacCullagh, was filling the prisons of the cities with Catholics, whose only crime was having attended mass or having done some other demonstration of being Catholic, right inside their homes, whose constitutional guarantees were shamelessly violated by those who claimed to be law-abiding and defenders. it is already known to all those who voluntarily do not close their eyes and ears to the testimonies that come to us from that same unfortunate Russia and its satellite countries. The Mexican communism of the time of Calles, as we have already heard from the testimony of a foreigner, Mr. Francis MacCullagh, was filling the prisons of the cities with Catholics, whose only crime was having attended mass or having done some other demonstration of being Catholic, right inside their homes, whose constitutional guarantees were shamelessly violated by those who claimed to be law-abiding and defenders.  And one fine day, May 8, 1929, the word spread among the afflicted Catholics that those "criminals" who had heard Mass and prayed the Rosary, and were thus confined in the capital's jails, were going to to be taken on a rope, like the real murderers and robbers, to the Islas Marías prison. Among those illustrious prisoners for Christ and his cause, there were people from all social classes, the elderly, young professionals, future students, ladies, young ladies accustomed to another kind of life than the one they had led, perhaps for months, in the infected cells of police stations or police inspections. Those dungeons had been during those long months a glorious theater of patience, charity, humility, sincere pity and Christian courage, that instills faith and love for Jesus Christ in hearts. Nothing, not an apostasy, not a weakness in acceding to the impious proposals of the executioners and jailers, had dishonored that legion of true disciples of Christ. Their names? ¡Oh! I do not have the complete list of them, and for nothing in this world I would like to omit from these pages, so as to appear to be contemptible, just one of them. God knows them all, but I will have to content myself only with those that appear expressly in the fragmentary accounts that I possess. But what I say in praise of these can and should be applied to all those who suffered the same martyrdom. At twelve o'clock on the night of May 8, 1929, the heads of the prisons gave the order to all the Catholic prisoners, to get ready to leave on a trip, because they were going to take them to the Islas Marías Prison, by decree of those who abide by the law, although without any previous process, nor a judge's sentence, nor anything that the law itself, despite being so disastrous, prevents to guarantee the prisoners. And the convoy left by train, whose final destination was the port of Manzanillo. As he passed through the railway stations, he would pick up other Catholics, similarly imprisoned for months, for the same crimes, in state prisons. In the Rope that left Mexico was among others the famous Mother Concepción de la Llata. In Guadalajara he was joined by three of those heroines of the women's brigades, of which I have already spoken: the ladies Adela López, Trinidad Preciado and María de Jesús Vargas, who already bore on their virginal bodies the scars of the wounds caused by the barbaric torments, to be submitted by Colonel Rafael Rubio, Police Inspector of the capital of Jalisco. ¡Miss Preciado had lost consciousness three days before in one of those torments, and in order to get her out of jail, her executioners managed to make her come to, with a procedure that no one had used until then... moving her like mad dogs!, in the arms and legs! The train continued on its way and at all the stations the Catholic prisoners were going up, and going up endlessly. In Colima, where the convoy arrived at around three in the afternoon, they took Mrs. María del Carmen Cruz from the town of Cómala. In Coquimatlán Mrs. Marciana Contreras de San Jerónimo, and the ladies María Salomé Ortega and Marcelina Camarena and the young Urbano Rocha. Immediately, all of them joyful as the apostles of Christ,

At midnight the rope arrived at the port of Manzanillo. There another infected prison awaited them, while the steamer Washington arrived, which received them in its malodorous and humid holds until the 13th. At twelve o'clock that day, between two lines of soldiers, they had arrived at the wharf, and the entire town was waiting for them, to give them a farewell demonstration, which could not help but move them and produce in the henchmen of the Callista tyranny, the most terrifying fury. "Farewell, blessed soldiers of Christ!" "Goodbye, blessed martyrs who suffer for Christ the King!” … "Bye Bye. . .!" '- May the Lord give you strength to suffer for Him! . . . Bye bye...!".

It was four in the afternoon on May 14, when the steamer docked at the pier on Isla María Madre, and immediately they were taken to a jacalón, an antechamber of the jail. It was not the first time that that sad prison received strings from Catholics. From May 29, 1927 to July 24 of the same year, thirteen Catholics had been confined there, including two elderly people. And it is from a letter from one of them that I am going to take the following extracts, to give an idea of ​​what the martyrs suffered there. "On Sunday, May 29, we woke up," he says, "in front of Isla María Madre, and at nine in the morning they took us off the boat and took us to the dock where they kept us until twelve o'clock." They were finally taken to the jacalón, together and scrambled with other criminals; and the letter continues: I realized that the destination was jail. This was a piece of four meters per side; the wall formed by sharp stones, dark, humid and with a lot of mud and stones below; the agglomeration produced a suffocating heat... We had not eaten since the day before. . . We spent that night in our shack, huddled together, without blankets or clothes, just as we were. . . The next day at four in the morning the reveille was heard, and voices were heard saying: get up, rascals, the good life is over. We formed up and went to the ranch, which we didn't take either. The director ordered us to go to the bathroom... they had us that morning as a holiday... At three in the afternoon they took us to load adobes, which each weighed 25 kilos. . . the distance is more than six hundred meters. . . It was that terrible afternoon; Each one had to carry two adobes, and at a coyote trot, with the foremen watching and beating those who couldn't do it. . . We all thought we were going to die there; we were not allowed to drink water, let alone rest; everything was sadness, suffering, anguish; Not even anyone remembered that he had lived among good society, in the bosom of an honorable family; since then the notion of men has ended; it became that of outcasts, brutes... the prisoner who dared to speak was beaten to the ground and insulted; the individual who could not rest with the adobes, was whipped and forced to carry three, and thus increased the load, as many times as he rested. . . For us, insults abounded... The foreman told me: Hello, fifi fanatic; come even, Let's see if it's the same to be with the priests than to work! . . . The Lic...  (an old man) could no longer carry the adobe bricks on his shoulder, and he carried them leaning on his waist. Mr. D. Juan already had a sore on his neck...; at 5 in the afternoon it was no longer possible to walk, that was terrible. The next day at four in the morning again to the adobes; We couldn't even get up because of the soreness in our bodies. Then the time was longer than the day before, because we worked non-stop until twelve... and we lasted like that until Wednesday, when they changed our work to composing a path, which was perhaps worse: it was about working with pickaxes and shovels to raise rocks", etc.

Naturally all these jobs could only be borne by men. As for the women, they were destined to cook food for the prisoners, mixed with the cream of the scoundrel of their sex, confined there for other enormous crimes. Others, even from the best social condition, were turned into servants of government employees, in that horrible prison. These jobs only had to be surpassed in the Russia of our days, where even Catholic and missionary nuns, from countries where communism dominates, are deported and locked up in concentration camps in Siberia, and are forced to work as men, making them carry extremely heavy rails on their weak shoulders, for the construction of bridges, etc. When the arrangements between the Government and the Prelates were finally carried out, His Excellencies. Mr. Ruiz and Díaz, the deportees returned to their homes, exhausted, sick, sad and anguished, for not having reached true peace with their unprecedented sufferings. that they desired with all their souls, for the cause of Christ the King.

And who knows! Perhaps this was, for some of them at least, a more painful martyrdom than all those they had suffered for so many months on the Islas Marías.