ADSUM

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[leitoracomcompanhia]

Cristiada

A política anti-clerical do governo mexicano fez com que, em janeiro de 1927, milhares de camponeses pegassem em armas, aos gritos de Viva Cristo Rey!. Não tardou que se lhes juntassem descontentes de todo o tipo. A sangrenta Guerra Cristera ou Cristiada durou até 1929. Custou 90.000 vidas, criou 26 santos e inspirou a Juan Rulfo algumas páginas de “Pedro Páramo”.

[tenebraetuae]

Estandartes reales del Ejército Cristero cuyo lema era ¡Viva Cristo Rey y Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!

La sola mención de dicho lema en público era motivo de detención y fusilamiento.

[presidialista]

The Mass of All Times turns Catholic men into crusaders

A secret Holy Mass celebrated by Fr. Encarnación Cabral to solemnize the armed uprising of Colonel Viramontes and his troops.

Juntas del Refugio, Zacatecas. November 6, 1927.

¡Viva Cristo Rey y Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe!

[presidialista]

Barbarians take the Temples

A sacrilegious banquet organized by soldiers of the Mexican government in the captured Temple of San Joaquín, May 15, 1928.

At the center, giving his back to the altar and empty tabernacle, General Joaquín Amaro Domínguez, Secretary of War.

¡Viva Cristo Rey and Our Lady of Guadalupe!

[presidialista]

¡Viva Cristo Rey! 

This image is called “Alegoría del sueño de Valverde” (Allegory of Valverde’s dream) and was painted by artist Don Antonio Segoviano in 1925. 

It depicts a dream that Monseñor Emeterio Valverde y Téllez, Bishop of León, had about the triumph of Our Lord Jesus Christ reigning over all Mexico.

[presidialista]

Do not worry, brothers!

Cristero families, supporters, or just common peasants that agreed with the catholic soldiers sometimes had to literally run to the hills to hide themselves in caves and forests. There they survived and praised the Lord. In the picture, an altar to the Sacred Heart hidden in a mountain.

We need to trust God, for He is the only one that can end this crisis in the Church.

¡Viva Cristo Rey!

[presidialista]

Maximilian’s Mexico: an anti-catholic liberal Empire Part 3 - Direct attacks against Catholic Mexico

After the Apostolic Nuncio left the Mexican Empire, Maximilian organized an embassy to Rome with the end of acquiring the concordat according to his liberal principles. Despite the good will of Rome, this embassy was short-lived as the points written by the Emperor were non-negotiable.

Maximilian did not care that the concordat with the Holy See was finished: his liberal ideas were to be implemented in Mexico anyways.

Decemeber 27, 1864, the Emperor writes an infamous letter to Pedro Escudero, his Minister of Justice, in which ratifies the nationalization of all properties of the Church. Not only the Holy See and the Mexican hierarchy were shocked by this move, but also the common folk saw that Maximilian was continuing the opressive liberal works of Juarez, Comonfort, etc.

January 7, 1865, the Empire releases a decree that prohibits the Mexican Church the publication of bulls, encyclicals, or any text coming from Rome without authorization from civil authorities. Indeed, the encyclical Quanta cura and the Syllabus of Pius IX were not printed, published, or distributed by Churchmen, but only in private presses owned by laymen.

February 26, 1865, a decree is released that permits and tolerates all religions in the Empire; not even Juarez dared to pass a law on Religious Freedom. Almost instantly diverse protestant sects begin to open cult centers in major cities and protestant bibles are distributed among their congregations.

March 12, 1865, the law of civil administration of cemeteries, promulgated by Juarez years before, is ratified by the Empire.

November 1, 1865, the Emperor enacts the Law of Civil Registration, taking marriages and births from the hands of the Church and giving them to the government. This law went so far as to not even recognize religious marriages as valid if the civil authorities were not notified first.

December 27, 1865, the Emperor enacted the Law of Public Instruction, in which declared that, as religion was just a matter of conscience, religious education was permited only in churches and in Mexico’s equivalent to elementary-school level. This law also permited the teaching in universities of “little known philosophies”.

All of this Maximilian did while maintaining the exterior image of a catholic monarch, but after a year of anti-catholic legislation no one believed in his public displays of religiosity anymore.

These were the Emperor’s legislative attacks to the Church and her faithful; After this troubled year, the consequences that lead to his fall and death were inevitable, and we will review them in a final post.

[presidialista]

Maximilian’s Mexico: an anti-catholic liberal Empire Part 2 - First steps and relations with the Papal Nuncio

The Emperors arrived to Veracruz in May 28, 1864; They were received enthusiastically by the people of Mexico, but churchmen and the conservative Party, who knew more about their characters, were already wary of the imperial couple.

The virtues of the Emperors were ecclipsed and darkened by their liberal convictions: Carlota was a highly educated Belgian princess but read and kept in her personal library the complete works of Voltaire, while Maximilian was refined and popular but weak-willed and resolved to imitate France’s political makeup.

José María Mateos, Freemason and founder of the Mexican National Rite, writes that Maximilian, altough never entered Mexican masonry, gladly accepted the title of “Protector of the Order” and the elevation to the 33rd degree of his chamberlain and his personal medic.

June 12, 1864, Archbishop Pelagio Labastida together with all Mexican prelates sign a pastoral letter urging all Mexicans to cooperate with the Emperor in the restoration of Catholic Mexico.

Once in the country´s capital, in a sweeping move Maximilian removed almost all conservatives and imperialists from government positions and gave these jobs to liberals, republicans, and even supporters of Benito Juarez. One example of these ruinous men is Fernando Ramírez, a fiery republican, appointed by the Emperor as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

December 7, 1864, Pier Franceso Meglia, Titular Archbishop of Damascus and Papal Nuncio in Mexico, arrives just in time to celebrate Holy Mass on the day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. A few days later, Mons. Meglia delivers a letter to the Emperor from H.H. Pius IX, in which the Holy Father blesses the Emperor and urges him to revoke all anti-catholic laws that opressed the common Mexican and enslaved the Church.

The Emperor receives the Nuncio after Christmas and presents him his plan for a concordat with the Holy See, consisting in 9 points:

Freedom of religion, which meant easy access to Mexico for all protestant sects, which until then were prohibited by Mexican law.

All Churchmen would get paid by the government as civil servants.

The Church would be prohibited from receiving tithes, alms, or any kind of retribution from the faithful.

Nationalization of Church properties confiscated during the Republic.

Imperial Patronage of the Mexican Church.

Re-establishment of religious orders.

Jurisdiction of the clergy.

Civil marriage and civil registration of births and deaths would be maintaned.

All cemeteries would now be civil properties and administered by the government.

These nine points shocked the Nuncio, who evidently did not accept such plan for a concordat. The Emperors insisted and Mons. Meglia tried to convince the couple to rectify such plans. Months passed and the Nuncio, realizing that all efforts were in vain, left Mexico and sailed to Rome on the last days of April, 1865.

Cardinal Antonelli, Secretary of State of Blessed Pius IX, then sent a letter in the name of the Holy See lamenting the way the Emperor of Mexico was taking, and to refute the most important errors of the proposed concordat: religious freedom and the nationalization of Church properties. When this letter was released to the Mexican people, some of the last conservatives in government positions resigned and renounced.

Emperor Maximilian of Mexico did not cared about this backlash, then procceded to make laws to implement his plans of liberal reform.

[presidialista]

A group of Cristeros gathered for secret Holy Mass, c. 1926

For the greater glory of God—and to make good use of my degree in History and the more-than-decent amount of bibliography I have amassed about this time in my country’s history—I will now use this account to provide more information, give context, and dispel myths about both Cristero wars, especially to catholics around the world that do not have easy access to this information like we Mexicans. 

So if you have any question about this or any other moment in Mexico’s history, and you want an answer compatible with our Traditional Catholic faith, just send me an ask!

¡Viva Cristo Rey!

[presidialista]

[presidialista]

The Crusades (1935)

If you want to watch a movie about the Holy Wars that is not completely anti-christian like so many of the modern ones, give this one a try.

It’s romantic and historically inaccurate, but sometimes that’s what we need, an ideal that leads us in the pursuit of virtues.

[presidialista]

A Cristero widow

This is one of the most famous pictures about the Cristero War (it is also one of my favourites), so I would like to share a little bit of more information about it:

The stern and dignified woman at the center is María del Socorro Heredia Aceves, widow of Colonel Ignacio Navarro Origel (AKA Teódulo Gutiérrez). Ignacio Navarro was the brother of General Luis Navarro Origel, who is considered “the first Cristero”.

At María’s right stands heroic Lieutenant Colonel Ángel Castillo González (AKA José González Romo). 

The flag in the picture is the one used by the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty (LNDLR in spanish).

¡Viva Cristo Rey y María de Guadalupe!

[presidialista]

Maximilian’s Mexico: an anti-catholic liberal Empire Part 1 - Antecedents

It is a common ocurrence to see fellow Trads, Monarchists, Mexican Patriots, and even catholics defend Maximilian’s Second Mexican Empire, and normally it is with good intentions, like the defense of Monarchy and the opposition to the masonic republic of infamous Mexicans like Benito Juarez.

But this idealization of both Maximilian and his Empire has to stop. I have written these lines to share some of the actions of the Emperor that prove that his reign was liberal and blatantly anti-catholic. My sources for this posts are a couple of books (sadly only available in spanish) by Canon Jesús García Gutiérrez, priest and historian specialized in ecclesiastical history in Mexico and New Spain, who also knew some of the main actors of the Empire.

Previous Mexican governments stole and confiscated all properties of the Church, affecting not only the clergy, but also the poor, sick and destitute, widows, orphans, and even the indigenous communities that worked and lived freely off the lands of the Church. Mexican people were happy with the idea of a Monarchy because it was believed that a catholic monarch would put an end to this injustice, but the Mexican Regency backed by Napoleon III chose to not return these stolen lands and goods to the Church, as most were sold to French, English, and American magnates.

Mexicans (even liberals) overwhelmingly voted in favor of reverting the form of government to a Monarchy, and when the Emperor arrived he was received enthusiastically by everyone. Mexicans were exhausted and empoverished by constant wars and the rise and fall of many politicians and demagogues since the Independence from Spain.

Maximilian accepted the Mexican throne even before the French intervention took place. Contrary to what some argue, Maximilian knew beforehand the dire state of Mexico’s economy and politics; he was not “tricked” into a troubled crown.

All the members of the Conservative party agreed that Maximilian, during the days he spent in Rome seeking council and the blessing of H.H. Pius IX, wasted a crucial opportunity that would have changed the destiny of his reign: a concordat with Rome directly negotiated with the Pope. Why the future Emperor avoided the issue once in Rome? Simple answer: He was instructed by Napoleon (in a letter dated January 3, 1864) to not even mention the topic to the Holy See, as the Church properties in Mexico would never go back to its rightful owners.

A minor detail in the lives of the Emperors, but one that tells us about their character and nature: during the 6-week voyage to Mexico, Maximilian and Carlota had the chance to learn, discuss, and organize solutions to Mexico’s problems, and they were accompanied by Mexican and European experts that could help them, but they instead focused in arranging the court, choosing palace decorations, organizing precedence of people in ceremonies, the design of new medals, etc… The Countess of Reinach wrote that “it was a surprise to all… [the] weak sense of responsibility… [and the] unbeliavable levity” of the Emperors during this journey.

Fr. Francisco Miranda—one of the founders of the Conservative Party, revered politician, and member of the delegation that offered the crown to Maximilian—after knowing in depth the future Emperor, wrote that “Mexico needed a legislator and a soldier, [Maximilian] was not the former nor the latter.”

In the next part I will write properly about the administration of the Empire once Maximilian arrived to Mexico and his attitude towards the Church in our country.

[vincekris]

Barry Lyndon (1975) Stanley Kubrick