As a Roman Catholic missionary in Mexico for the past 35 years, I'm rather surprised that most Americans do not know about the Cristero War. Plenty of sources were always available in the U.S., the same sources that were prohibited down here.

Charles,
Could you suggest a book or articles about the Cristero War in English? I had read Power and the Glory, but I am in the dark on historical sources. Thanks.

I shall offer your consideration, kind brethren, a call to a caution of another sort: Let us avoid seeing this episode in the stark hues of black and white. It beehoves us to do so if we are to use it wisely to our advantage and not our eventual downfall. As a person whose family origins are rooted in this very "sui generis" area of Mexico , I have seen how the would-be heirs of the "Cristero" movement and its various incarnations, first the Synarchist Movement, then the Mexican Democratic Party and at present the ruling National Action Party, have given superficial political interests and the veneer of public piety greater importance than a healthy inner consistency of conscience. The Mexican electorate is seeing through their charade. If these paladins of public Christianity had not spent the past decade stealing from the public purse like the most craven pagans, degrading God's creation in pursuit of short-term profit and engaging in scandalous public bachannals, they might have drawn more people to Christianity than by bombastic public pronouncements and strategically - timed movie releases. I've known of this episode from my earliest childhood and have seen it from the point of view of the fanatically pro-cristero "hidalgo" class and that of the largely unseen and unvalidated "nobles" who in large measure became the victims of a nearly universally sanctioned public spite, notwithstanding their admirable Christian virtues. I've only recently encountered the horrific suffering of these people during this period and am in awe of their TRUE nobillity in the absence of any rancor and the firm adhesion to a Catholic Church which sometimes turned a blind eye to the heinous pillaging perpetrated on their life and property by false "cristeros". For how can a person who attaches the prefix "crist" to anything steal everything from livestock to horses to the most humble foodstuffs, all the while threatening to rape women in the name of ... "Christ?" Let us be honest: MANY of these people were simply advantegeous thugs. Why do I mention this in regard to the present moment? Because we cannot afford the luxury of seeing ourselves as latter-day crusaders and not take note of every crusader's Achilles' heel: the HUMAN impulse to PRIDE. I merely ask that as we speak truth to power we WATCH ourselves as we are WATCHED by the highest of powers - He who discerns our conscience. We must be VERY CAREFUL not to become automatons spewing words in defense of CONCEPTS our very ACTIONS sometimes negate. I cannot and should not see myself as a GENUINE advocate of RELIGON of any kind, its rights and its prerogatives, however just they may be, unless I keep in mind the words of the Apostle St. James: Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

John, the first books that came out in English were popular works, like Schlarman's "Mexico, A Land of Volcanoes," especially chapters 35–37. Some works did not have sufficient critical apparatus to base themselves, like "Mexican Martyrs" (Tan) in which Mother Conchita Acevedo de la Llata (a true hero of Christ) is denigrated because the author, does not know all the facts and is basing himself on her slanderers. For the truth about her, one should definitely read her excellent autobiography in two volumes (first volume about her childhood until she was in the Islas Marias prison and the second volume after she was released 13 years later). Have you heard of a book called "No God Next Door"? Very old and popular. Not a critical study, but was read by many devout Catholics. The most prominent modern study is by Jean Meyer: "The Cristero Rebelliion" and "La Cristiada" both translated from French into English. I see on Amazon Jim Tuck's "Holy War in Los Altos" and David C. Bailey's "Viva Cristo Rey", and I have not read either of them. Most of what I have read is in Spanish (contraband). Sorry I cannot give you more bibliography in English because I am far from being an expert on this issue. I live right now in the Altos (where most of the martyrs lived) and am in contact with some of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The tradition is very much alive down here, and the Basilica of the Holy Martyrs on a grand scale is being built right here in Guadalajara.

John, actually the best literature on the Cristero War (the most edifying and authentic) is made up of the biographies of the beatified and canonized. I believe there are already about 50 of them. The number of people who died in this war is about 90,000. Among them my favorite martyr is: Blessed Anacleto González Flores. He was a modern Socrates. Just to know of him, through the witnesses who knew him firsthand, has left the greatest impact on my life.

I really enjoyed reading
With Life and Laughter: The Life of Father Miguel Agustin Pro BY Gerald Muller

This link has other books about Blessed Father Pro.

http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/pro/pro_bibliography.html

The historian Jean Meyer made many years ago a great historical work about the Cristero ´s war. They mobilized more people than the other Mexican revolutions put together. That was a true people ´s war. Jean Meyer said about them: an army full of morality as no other in Mexican history, fathers and mothers of family delivered to fight for the lack of the Holy Bread, poor Daughters of Mary smuggling arms for the cause, prostitutes and Indians carrying images and crosses across their mountains and wood shelters... That was the people that, without leaders, without the aid of priests and Church, with no foreign connections made war almost with pure hands and hearts to deffend the lonely honour of God and of course of Freedom. And the Church? The Church never backed the rebels, the priests were hunted and shot, the churches destroyed or desecrated, the religious signs forbidden, but the Church didn ´t want war, this is the very truth, and the Church was prosecuted with the utmost ferocity. When Calles goverment was tired of killing for thousands honest people and Gorostieta was winning battles against him, when goverment pleaded for peace and take Mexican Bishops as interllocutors, peace was made in a moment and the great Cristero army was disolved. I must remark Gorostieta, an agnostic, a just man, full of compassion and integrity. This man was the general Cristero ´s people took for them, the only one who accepted their leadership. Glory for them. Glory for him. I ´m glad to see that their fight is recorded.

Ok, guys, I did the research on the Saints and Blesseds of Mexico, just to see how many there were. There are 37 Saints and Blesseds born of and due to the Cristero Wars in Mexico. Altogether, before , during, and up to date Saints and Blesseds of Mexico, equal 53. Now this is an amazing number of good and holy people. (Compare this to the U.S.A.--we have 9 Saints.) Here is my list. I used the Vatican as a source as well as several other books written about the Saints and Blesseds in the Americas.

And somewhere, which I cannot yet relocate, I saw online that Benedict XVI canonized Anacleto Gonzoles and Jose Sanchez del Rio.

SAINTS AND BLESSEDS OF MEXICO—53 LISTED
(These are marked as*those of the Cristero Wars )

PATRON SAINT OF MEXICO CITY

53. SAINT PHILIP OF JESUS—born in Mexico City, 1575, martyred in Japan for the Faith. (Augustian priest) D.1597
Saints (PRIESTS):

JALISCO (27) SAINTS AND BLESSEDS

JALISCO (SAINTS)
1- *Saint Cristóbal Magallánes (1869-1927) ~JALISCO
2. *Saint José María Robles Hurtado (1888-1927)~JALISCO
3 *Saint David Galván Bermúdez (1881-1915)~JALISCO
4. *Saint Justino Orona Madrigal (1877-1928)~JALISCO
5. *Saint Atilano Cruz Alvarado (1901-1928)~JALISCO
6. *Saint Román Adame Rosales (1890-1927)~JALISCO
7. *Saint Julio Alvarez Mendoza (1866-1927)~JALISCO
8. *Saint Pedro Esqueda Ramírez (1887-1927)~JALISCO
9. *Saint Rodrigo Aguilar Alemán (1903-1927)~JALISCO
10.*Saint Tranquilino Ubiarco Robles (1899-1928)~JALISCO
11. *Saint Jenaro Sánchez Delgadillo (1866-1927)~JALISCO
12. *Saint Sabás Reyes Salazar (1883-1927)~JALISCO
13. *Saint Toribio Romo González (1900-1927)~JALISCO
14. *Saint David Uribe Velasco (1888-1927)~JALISCO
15. *Saint Margarito Flores García (1888-1927)~JALISCO
16. *Saint Miguel de la Mora (?-1927) ~ JALISCO
17-Saint María de Jesús Sacramentado~JALISCO
(María Venegas de la Torre) Virgin. Foundress of the Congregation of the Daughters of the Heart of Jesus. 1868 -1959



LAYMEN, BLESSEDS
18-*Blessed Leonardo Pérez Martyr. Layman. 1883.11.28 1927.04.25 JALISCO

19. Blessed MARIA GUADALUPE de ZAVALA 1878-1963
(MOTHER MADRE LUPITA)~JALISCO
20--*Saint Anacleto González Flores (1888.07.13-1927.04.01) JALISCO:-
21-. *Blessed José Dionisio Luis Padilla Gómez (1899.12.09-1927.04.01) JALISCO:-
22- *Blessed Jorge Vargas González (1899.09.28-1927.04.01)- JALISCO:
23. *Blessed Ramón Vargas González (1905.01.22-1927.04.01)- JALISCO:
24-. *Blessed José Luciano Ezequiel Huerta Gutiérrez (1876.01.06- JALISCO:1927.04.03)
25. *Blessed Salvador Huerta Gutiérrez (1880.03.18-1927.04.03) JALISCO:
26 *Blessed Miguel Gómez Loza (1888.08.11-1928.03.21) JALISCO:
27. *Blessed Luis Magaña Servín (1902.08.24-1928.02.09) JALISCO:
28.- *Saint José Sánchez del Río Martyr. Adolescent. JALISCO:

ZACATECAS (9)
29. *BLESSED MIGUEL PRO, S.J. ~( 1891-1927) ‘THE MERRY MEXICAN MARTYR’--~ZACATECAS
30. *Saint Luis Bátiz Sáinz (1870-1926)~ZACATECAS
31. *Saint José Isabel Flores Varela (1866-1927)~ZACATECAS
32 *Saint Agustín Caloca (1898-1927)~ZACATECAS
33. *Saint Manuel Morales (?-1926)~ZACATECAS
34. *Saint Salvador Lara Puente (?-1926)~ZACATECAS
35. *Saint David Roldán Lara (?-1926)~ZACATECAS
36. *Saint Mateo Correa Magallanes (1866-1929)~ZACATECAS


CHICHUACHUA (1)
37. *Saint Pedro de Jesús Maldonado Lucero (1892?)~CHICHUACHUA

MICHOACAN (5)
38.-Saint Rafael Guízar y Valencia~MICHOACAN~ Bishop of Veracruz. 1878.04.26 /1938.06.06

39. *Saint Jesús Méndez Montoya (1886-?)~MICHOACAN
40-*Blessed Ángel Darío Acosta Zurita Martyr. Priest. 1908.12.13 1931.07.25~VERA CRUZ, MICHOACAN
41-María Vincenta of St. Dorothy(Vincenta Chávez Orozco)
Virgin. Foundress of the Congregation the Servants of the Holy Trinity and the Poor..1867-1949~ MICHOCOAN



EARLIEST MARTYRED SAINTS OF MEXICO WHO WERE CHILDREN (as shown on cave writings):
42. SAINT Juan (-1527) Child. (c.1527-1529 )
43. SAINT Christóbal (1514-1527) Child.
44. SAINT Antonio (c.1516-1529) Child.

FIRST INDIGENOUS SAINT OF THE AMERICAS FROM MEXICO

45. -SAINT Juan Diego Layman. Witness of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mexico 1474-1548 --MEXICO

JALMOLONGA (1)
46. Saint José Maria de Yermo y Parres 1915-1937 Priest. Founder of the Congregation of the Servants of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Poor.


List of those made BLESSED /Mexico/PRIESTS/LAYPERSONS
GUANAJUATO
47.-*Blessed José Trinidad Rangel Martyr. Priest. 1887.06.04 / 1927.04.25~GUANAJUATO
48.*Blessed ELIAS DEL SOCCORRO NIEVES~ (1882-1928) GUANANJUATO


49-*Blessed Andrés Solá Molist~ BORN IN SPAIN, MARTYRED IN MEXICO (1)
Martyr. Priest of the Congregation of Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. 1895.10.07 / 1927.04.25


OAXACA LAYMEN, BLESSEDS: (2)
50-Blessed Jacinto de los Ángeles (1660-1700) Father of family. OAXACA
51-Blessed Juan Bautista (1660-1700) Father of family. OAXACA

PUEBLA (1)
52. Blessed Sebastian de Apraicio—
layman, grew rich in Mexico and learned to share his wealth with the Poor all around him. (1502-1500) Patron Saint of Roads because he built so many. ~~PUEBLA

Charles and Doris, thank you very much--this is a great start.

In watching this film, I was struck by the sudden and deadly violence initiated by the government. This is how things began in other government led oppressions right around the world. Very sudden. Very deadly.

A very moving film. And relevant. Many of Obama's fellow travellers come close to Calles and his ilk in their disrespect for religion. (Castro's neice, the "sexologist," endorsed him today.)

It is tragic to see how secular and pagan Mexico has become under the sway of degenerate television, corruption and narcotraffic. Divorce and American-style perversions are rampant. Pobre México, so far from God and so close to the United States.

†

While in no way seeking to dimish the heroism of the Cristero soldiers or the vicious atheism of the Calles government, it would be wise to look at how the Catholic Church contributed to revolution-prone social situations in Latin America. As David Goldman (under his nom de guerre, "Spengler"), an occasional contributer to these pages, wrote in an Asia Times Online opinion piece last month, commenting on the chronic habit of the global economy to cater to the desire for luxury goods :

"After the conquest of the New World, Spain's entire capture of precious metals went to India and China to pay for luxury cloth and spices. That did for approximately 90 percent of the indigenous pre-Colombian population."

And this exploitation of American Indian populations was done hand-in-glove with the Catholic Church--with a few heroic exceptions, such as de las Casas. The feudal societies which later evolved in Latin America were typically characterized by a "tripod" of power, the three legs of which were an oligarchy of wealthy land-owning families, the army, and the Church.

When I worked with Habitat for Humanity, I befriended a young Mexican volunteer who explained to me that in Mexico the rich are not like the rich in America. "It's not like here," he said. "They don't feel they need to share their wealth." Indeed. That reminded me of the time I was standing outside a Mexican cathedral, watching a blind man simply holding his hat out for donations from people leaving mass. One well-dressed middle-aged woman never even broke her brisk stride coming out the church door when, with a sneer on her face, she slammed her hand up on the bottom of the hat, spraying coins in all directions. The blind man, with typical campesino passivity, had no reaction at all. I got down on my knees and replaced every coin in his hat.

Yes, yes, I know very well about Mexican saints and priests and nuns who were wonderful exceptions. But the identification of the Church through the centuries with the interests of the wealthy classes served to cripple its moral voice in Latin America.

I have a good Jewish friend who emigrated from the Soviet Union in the seventies. Roma had been a tank commander in the Soviet Army and director of a tank factory in Kiev. He finally turned against the Soviet system, and he arrived in America with a microfilmed diagram of the entire Soviet system for military production (which he happily turned over to US Naval intelligence) hidden in his heel. During one of our late-night conversations, he offered the only quote from Lenin of which he approved: "Russia was pregnant with the revolution." In a like manner, Mexico was pregnant with the revolution that finally came. But if the Church had been less identified with wordly power and the upper classes, is it possible that the revolution would have taken a less malignantly anti-clerical turn?

(And yes, please forgive my gross oversimplification of the complexities of Mexican history!)

There is a companion book to this film which is soon to be released. The author is Ruben Quezada. Published by St. Joseph Communications, Inc. and Ignatius Press. The book is in Q & A format with a foreword by Archbishop Gomez of Los Angeles. It leaves out the Hollywood fluff and deals with the truth.

Graham Greene's 'The Power and the Glory' actually does not mention the Cristeros; it is nevertheless a powerful vision of the persecuted Church.

Rick, I see you dont say anything about the real situation of Mexican Church and about the Cristiada. The Cristiada was a peoples war against an unjust and repressive movement. It has not conection with wealthy or unwealthy classes: mexican catholics, poor and rich, took armas against Calles. This is the truth you are not looking at. The Church was the only institution that deffended the indians against Spanish conquerors. Las Casas was not an exception.

To counter the admitted oversimplification of the previous post, the Cristeros were primarily composed of rural poor and middle class. The revolution was an imported European notion. The Cristeros were opposed by American weapons and kkk cash, as well as many of the 'nobles' you cite. Your anecdotal evidence (historical or not) in no way proves your point. The Catholic church is not the same as the 'nobility' and please explore how these early 'nobles' treated the church--not well.

George, thanks for your excellent piece on the film and the Cristeros.

Regarding a book on the subject, Ignatius Press has the official companion book to the film that explores the whole story in much more depth. Find it on the home page for IP at Ignatius.com.

@Barnie: "Rick, I see you dont say anything about the real situation of Mexican Church and about the Cristiada. The Cristiada was a peoples war against an unjust and repressive movement. It has not conection with wealthy or unwealthy classes: mexican catholics, poor and rich, took armas against Calles. This is the truth you are not looking at. The Church was the only institution that deffended the indians against Spanish conquerors. Las Casas was not an exception."

I went out of my way to excuse Los Cristeros from blame. As far as I can see, they were heroic fighters against tyranny.

As for Las Casas being an exception or not, I am not as thoroughly versed in his life as my wife. (She is currently writing a book length prose-poem about him.) But Las Casas himself documented abuses of Indians not only by los encomenderos, but also by priests and friars. The position of the Church vis-a-vis the Indians and, later, the Latin American poor in general, is admittedly much more complicated than I indicated, and I would not want to even imply a general condemnation of its activities. Still, I think there were many instances when the Latin American Church shot itself in the foot historically, so to speak.

@Austinne: "The revolution was an imported European notion."

Well, of course it was. As was the entire Spanish Conquista and the Church itself.

When I was young I read Castanedas book about to be a yaqui wizard and I remember one thing Don Juan said: the indians were humiliated and opressed but they always could befriend a friar or a priest because one of this poor ones could be as powerful as a soldier. I dont want to speak about Paraguay and the jesuits and the evidence indian culture and lenguage were preserved by clergymen. In Mexico and in other parts of Latin America the Church was the deffender of the Ejidos and other kind of communal property. Cristeros movement was not a revolutionary movement in the earthly or political sense, it was revolutionary because it showed to the civil goverment he couldnt do what he wanted about religion and religious things. The goverment could dictate laws but there was a limit to his power. I think nothing is more revolutionary in the good sense than to show to an earthly power that his power is not absolute.

I went to see the movie, and was talking to a fellow viewer as we left the film. His comment was thought provoking: isn't it interesting that we get "Hunger Games" and "For Greater Glory" in the same season we get the challenges to religious freedom we are facing in our countries (USA & Canada).

@Rick


You comment "it would be wise to look at how the Catholic Church contributed to revolution-prone social situations in Latin America". I agree that it was the liberal Jesuits and their marxists liberation theology that contributed to this revolution in Latin American in the late 60s/70s but not the social teaching of the church (re: Pope Leo XIII Rerum Novarum), its really offensive when people like you use a wide brush to implicate the church as a whole base on what some priests/bishops may have done, in this case and with the priest sexual abuse scandals, after Catholics arrived in pagan Mexico it was transformed to rival the modern cities of Europe at that time, i.e., in trade, schools, universities, charities, art, architecture, etc, so I disagree with your thesis that the church was in bed with the wealthy, it was just isolated cases with priests and bishops, a good book I recommend is Warren Carroll "Our Lady of Guadalupe: And the Conquest of Darkness".

Rick's rather arch story about the rich woman knocking the coins out of the hat of the beggar outside the doors of a cathedral is offered to support an overall claim that the "Catholic Church contributed to revolution-prone social situations in Latin America...." In fact, the story--which reads far too much into the mind of the uninterviewed woman--rests on Rick's apparent belief that beggars are stupid. In truth, there are often beggars outside church/cathedral doors when masses occur or there are other reasons for a high degree of traffic into or out of a church. Although I have no greater mind reading ability than Rick does, I must assume from the frequency of beggars' taking up positions outside cathedrals that they do not take up those positions because the Catholic Church opposes social justice but precisely because the Catholic Church has always preached social justice. If he is unaware of that, Rick might want to start with Matt. 25. The beggars vote with their feet (or their crutches or dollies) and show a far greater degree of perception about the Church's position on social justice than Rick does.

I got a great deal from Mr. Weigel's article and am deeply grateful to Georgia for the research she has done and that I am extracting. I should note, though, that the events surrounding the Cristero War were neither the beginning nor the end of vicious Mexican Governmental efforts to destroy the Catholic church, often in league with anti-Catholic elements in the US. Those hateful attacks started with Benito Juarez and continued until the 1990s when Pope John Paul II's repeated visits to Mexico revealed the still overwhelming loyalty of the Mexican People To Jesus, His Sweet Mother (La Morenita) and His Holy Catholic Church. The official anti-Catholicism of the Institutional Revolutionary Party was revealed to be hollow and toothless.

All US Catholics should be grateful to their Mexican co-religionists who have stood in opposition to that hatred and should look to their courage as we start to face more and more bare knuckled efforts to attack Catholicism here in the USA. Fortunately, Our Lady of Guadelupe is the Patroness of all the Americas and a wonderful inspiration for all Catholics facing oppression.

@elcid: "its really offensive when people like you use a wide brush to implicate the church as a whole..."

My comments from above: "I went out of my way to excuse Los Cristeros from blame. As far as I can see, they were heroic fighters against tyranny....The position of the Church vis-a-vis the Indians and, later, the Latin American poor in general, is admittedly much more complicated than I indicated, and I would not want to even imply a general condemnation of its activities."

Anyone who can read my comments and conclude that I am indicting the Church as a whole with a broad brush would be well advised to enroll in a reading comprehension course. But I've run into this mentality here before. To even hint that the Church isn't blameless is to be automatically identified as an enemy who seeks the Church's destruction.

@patricksarsfield:

Please read the above comment addressed to elcid. It also applies to your comments. As to the mentality of the wealthy of Latin America, I spent many years living and working in Latin American countries (Mexico, Central American countries, pre-revolutionary Cuba), and anyone who thinks that the Latin American rich share the same sense of empathy and charity for the poor and disadvantaged that is common among the rich in the United States is grossly uninformed, to say the least. My Mexican friend at Habitat headquarters knew very well what he was talking about. The Church's official position on social justice and the actual behaviour of the often devoutly Catholic elite classes in Latin America are two entirely different things.

@elcid: "...after Catholics arrived in pagan Mexico it was transformed to rival the modern cities of Europe at that time, i.e., in trade, schools, universities, charities, art, architecture, etc..."

Quite true. And this transformation was effected, as I pointed out with the quote from David Goldman above, without the presence of 90% of the pre-Columbian population to enjoy its fruits. The conquistadores conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Americas that was finally more successful than Hitler's campaign to "aryanize" Eastern Europe. Hitler's plan for the Slavic nations was to eliminate about 90% of the "sub-human" population and keep the remaining 10% for slave labor. He failed. The Spanish succeeded, while reaping enough wealth from their colonies to satisfy the appetite of the Spanish nobility and emerging middle classes for fine cloth, silk, tea, spices, and so forth.

My Mexican mother always told us she was baptized in secret, in her family living room, by a priest disguised as a charcoal-vendor, in 1936, in Mexico City. Her father often worked on behalf of the Revolutionary government, and knew the political leadership, including Calles. At the closing of religious schools in the later 1920s, he brought tutors into their home for the education of the older children. Their family would help priests and religious, at risk to their own lives because they would never consider doing otherwise. It was a complex time when the Mexican bishops showed a great amount of restraint, and the Revolutionary government showed very little.

Rick writes:
"The conquistadores conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Americas that was finally more successful than Hitler's campaign to "aryanize" Eastern Europe. "

WOW, is this an application of the Black Legend corollary that one cannot use a Nazi analogy UNLESS one is attacking the Catholic Church?

In all events, the Conquistadores were amateurs compared to the English and their American successors. Despite the unfortunately high rate of deaths among Latin American Indians when the "Encounter" occurred, the Conquistadores' conquest left a significantly higher percentage of Indians alive in the Spanish and Portuguese American domains than survived in these United States. Could ita been those smallpox blankets the English handed out?

Or to put it another way: if the Catholic Church was so bad to the Indians, why did the Indian-based poor of Mexico stay so loyal to the Catholic Church despite more than a century of attacks on the Church by the Mexican government? Particularly when it is clear that the anti-Catholic elements in Mexico received so much support from anti-Catholic elements in the US?

@patricksarsfield: "...is this an application of the Black Legend corollary that one cannot use a Nazi analogy UNLESS one is attacking the Catholic Church?"

I never heard of this corollary, and I can think of far better organizations to analogize with the Nazis than the Catholic Church. In any case, the analogy was to the Spanish colonialists, not the Church. I was responding to elcid's glorifying of the colonialist enterprise.

Yes, you make an excellent point that we in North America had our own campaign of ethnic cleansing, and a very successful one. I once read a book of the collected letters of Gen. George Patton. While he was with Pershing on the punitive expedition in Mexico he was so repelled by the culture and racial characteristics of Mexicans that he wrote to his family that the right thing to do would be to "invade, conquer, and occupy Mexico" and subsequently to "exterminate the existing population." Sure, he was a fantastic genius at conventional warfare, but what difference is there between this mentality and the Nazis? None at all that I can see!

My friends, I think we are very far from the matter of this article. Its true, after the coming of the Spanish all demographers agree there was a terrible lowing of population. And Spanish conquest was specially bloody and it utterly changed the way of living and the culture of the native people. Humilliation, false paternalism, rape were the norm. The truth about Black Legend is that Black Legend was true. But Catholic Church did very much for the Indians. And Las Casas was not alone. But now we must speak of the Cristero people and we must be one in his remembrance. I commend John Fords adaptation of Graham Greene "The Power and the Glory", "The fugitive", a great movie with Henry Fonda in a Christ-like role, I commend the novel and the documental work of Greene himself "The lawless roads". Glory for the martyrs. Glory for the Church they died for.

Barnie writes:
"The truth about Black Legend is that Black Legend was true...."

Support? In truth, the English (and their successors, American anti-Catholics) have been lying about the Spanish for almost as long as they have been lying about the Irish.

The Black Legend was originally told about the Spanish versus English during Elizabeth I's reign. Gloriana herself was supposedly just trying to conduct her virginal love affair with her loving subjects without looking into the window of their souls, when out of nowhere, the Pope excommunicated her in 1571 and the Spanish supported the husband-killing Mary Stuart for the next 16 years in an attempt to force Catholicism on the good Protestant people of England. When Elizabeth's noble spymasters finally got the proof needed to carry their burden under the common law, Mary was axed in 1587 but the Spanish decided to interfere with English justice by declaring war on the freedom-loving English and thereafter to launch their hateful Armada which fortunately was destroyed by a Good Protestant Wind!!

In fact, though, Elizabeth had been using Protestantism as an excuse to meddle into the affairs of her neighbors and to wage a pirate war against Spain from the early days of her reign. Thus, in 1559, she launched a military effort in Scotland to help the Protestant lairds of the congregation in an effort to undermine Mary Queen of Scots. Then in 1562, she sent an English Expeditionary Force to help the Protestant rebels in France (and in the event lost Calais which was supposed to come back to England in 1563). Then in 1565, she allowed her corsairs to wage pirate war on Spain and followed that up with her own 1568 seizure of the Spanish Plate Fleet which was seeking refuge in English ports from the English pirates who infested the English Channel. Despite all those provocations, Phillip II of Spain tried to maintain peace with England and did not launch his Armada until England sent an expeditionary force to Spain's possession of the Netherlands under the command of Elizabeth's lover Robert Dudley in 1585. That unquestionable act of war by England was the real reason Spain decided to invade England and it puts the lie to the oldest English Black Legend about Spain.

At the end of the XVIth century, Spain was at war with France, Holland and England. Spanish Empire was a machine of war employing all the gold she took from America with Indian bloody sweat to raise floats and armies and to pursue her wars. Spain was occupying part of France and Holland and was paying every fanatic to kill her enemies -so William of Orange was killed, so Henry IV was killed, so Elizabeth was upon the treat of being killed. 3 more Armadas were launched against England after 1588. The second left Spain in October 1596, with instructions to land in Ireland. Another violent storm wrecked most of the ships. The third Armada left Spain the following year but it was also destroyed by storms. The fourth and last Armada left Spain in February 1598, to rendezvous with French troops at Calais, but the death of Philip II put an end to further Spanish attempts to invade England.

In fact, Spain was like Germany in 1939, a conquest-hungry country and with the destruction of the Armada England won the cyclical battle of Waterloo for the world’s freedom sake. In Rome the Pope Sixtus greeted the news of Mary Stuart’s death with lamentation, but added in an aside about Elizabeth: 'What a valiant woman—she braves the two greatest kings by land and sea. A pity we cannot marry, she and I, for our children would have ruled the world!' To the Spanish Ambassador he repeated his promise to give Philip one million ducats as soon as Spanish soldiers landed on English soil, but would not advance a single one by way of a forward loan. And he said too: "She certainly is a great queen, and were she only a Catholic she would be our dearly beloved. Just look how well she governs; she is only a woman, only mistress of half an island, and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the Empire, by all". His successor, Clement, was too against Spain and he said to Baltasar Zuñiga the Spanish ambassador that Spanish religious zeal was only and excuse to make them the lords of the world. Years before, the "Catholic" Spain had occupied Rome and put in rags the Pope in the reign of Charles the Vth.

Yes I know English Elizabethans were killing Irishmen for hundreds -Spanish were killing Indians for thousands; and I know very well too Elizabeth was persecuting English Catholics -there were not extant Protestants in Spain to persecute but the Spanish Inquisition -against the will of the Pope- was burning people because they had a drop of Jewish blood in their ancestry. I dont speak about Cuba, St Domingo, and other Caribbean Islands, full of people (more than a million only in Cuba), depopulated in a few years for gold-hungry Spanish and repopulated with Black slaves. Spain was like the Turkish Empire, a fierce machine of war not capable to stop the wars she was putting on. Yes, the Black Legend was the true.

Barnie writes that Spain was at war with England France and holland at the end of the 16th Century and then goes off into some overblown comparisons of Phillip II's Spain to Adolf Hitler's Germany. There are just too many mixed up allegations to clean up Barnie's version of the Black Legend. Suffice it to say that Henri IV was not killed by Phillip II. He survived until 1610 (long after Phillip II's demise) and was assassinated then. Nor was Elizabeth ever credibly the subject of an attempted killing by a Spanish agent. The only one who was killed at the instance of the Spanish was William of Orange, who was a subject of the Spanish King. William had been declared an outlaw by the Spanish and a price had been put on his head. Baltahasar Gerard killed William in hopoes of collecting the bounty price but was caught by the Delft authorities who were in league with William against Spain.

If bounties can be said to be barbarous, they were no more so than the bounties offered in 19th and 20th Century America. Surely, they were less barbarous than the execution Gerard underwent NOT BY THE SPANISH but by the purportedly less Nazi-like Dutch. The Delft magistrates decreed that the right hand of Gérard should be burned off with a red-hot iron, that his flesh should be torn from his bones with pincers in six different places, that he should be quartered and disembowelled alive, that his heart should be torn from his bosom and flung in his face, and that, finally, his head should be cut off. Kinda like the way Elizabeth treated the Catholics that fell into her snares. So, truth be told, there are a lot of Black Tales of the Protestants that could be told too.

There is no overblown comparison between Philip of Spain and Hitler. Both were cold blooded fanatics that destroyed the peace and invaded countries in the name of an idea. Phillip of Spain was a man capable of cheating his own confessors when they gave him a counsell against his will. You must think it was a very noble thing to put to death William of Orange because he was his subject but I think otherwise. And Ravaillac, the killer of Henry of Navarre, was another flower of the seed of Phillip. And Jacques Clement the monk who killed Henry III was another one. There was no court in Europe, papal or royal, free from the Spanish plotting. And Spanish politics carried Europe to the bloodshed of the thiry years war. But the main thing is the politics of Spain in South America and there we can see them reaching a peak of genocide and robbering, comdemning a whole continent to a demographic low never seen in history. It was a very hitlerite thing. Of course Protestans made their part of the lot of killing and burning. But you must know English Catholics prefered Elizabeth to a Spanish puppet king. Ben Jonson, a Catholic in hard hours, Father Thomas Wright, the jesuit that converted him when he was in jail, Henry Standen, the main spy of Elizabeth about Armada matter, a Catholic but a lover of his country too. In America, thanks to God there was a Church and the Spanish sword had the balance of people of truly Christian spirit. When the Spanish left South America that was the only thing that remained. And the love of the poor people of Mexico was the the proof of it. If you want we can discuss about old history but now it is the time of honor martyrs. To kill in the name of Christ is a blasphemy but Cristeros died for Christ defending their Church because like the martyrs of Bethany they couldnt live without the Bread of Heaven. They are the true example, no Philip of Spain and his armies of bloody mercenaries.

Kinda irked that all remembrance of this time in history is credited to one man and his book. Mexicans never forgot. Mexican Americans never forgot, and never will. Like other wars, the story is hard for those who lived through it to tell, but that doesn't mean it was forgotten. Men like my great grandfather lived through it, saw the violence and shared their stories with their families.

I'm glad the film was made and on the big screen, but its very Hollywood.