Mexico’s bishops mark 100th anniversary of persecution
August 06, 2026
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CWN Editor's Note: The Mexican bishops’ conference issued a statement marking the 100th anniversary of the Calles Law, which suppressed the liberty of the Church and precipitated the Cristero War.
The episcopal conference’s president and secretary-general recalled that Pope Pius XI’s “teaching about the kingship of Christ—who does not impose himself with arms, but reigns from the cross—became in Mexico a popular cry that no army could extinguish: ‘Long live Christ the King and Holy Mary of Guadalupe!’ One hundred years later, that cry is still a program: to recognize that no human power is absolute, because God alone is Lord of conscience and of history.”
Stating that “we do not commemorate a war or celebrate a victory,” Bishops Ramón Castro Castro and Héctor Pérez Villarreal said that “we commemorate, instead, three things”:
- “the fidelity of a believing people who, in the midst of fear, continued to pray in their homes, baptize their children in secret, protect their priests and keep the faith alive when there were no churches open”
- “the testimony of the martyrs, who did not kill for Christ, but died for Him, forgiving their executioners”
- “the lesson learned at a very high price: that religious freedom is not a privilege of the clergy, but a right of every human person, and that its denial always ends up costing blood”
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