Cristeros Forgotten in Mexico's Remembrance of Revolutionary Victims
Three months after coming into office, on March 4, 2019, the president of Mexico opened the archives of the intelligence services in order to “shed light” on the abuses perpetrated by the parties born of the Mexican Revolution from 1929 to 1985. The martyrdom of the Cristeros, however, is not included in this search for the truth.
On March 1, 2019, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador voiced a vibrant appeal, begging “forgiveness in the name of the State” of the victims of the darkest hours of the Mexican Revolution. The day before, the Mexican president had signed a decree declassifying over 10,000 crates of documents hitherto kept under seal in the National Archives.
The files in question, claims Le Monde, cover 90 years of exactions. But the Mexican president deserves reproach for the selectiveness of a mea culpa that completely disregards the crimes perpetrated against the Church by the revolution.
Indeed, between 1926 and 1929, the Mexican Catholics rallied by the tens of thousands under the banner of Christ the King to fight against an openly impious and persecuting legislation. It was the war of the Cristeros—or the Cristiada—that came to a bloody end in 1929.
For, despite their demobilization—encouraged by certain bishops—in exchange for a promise of peace from the revolutionary government, the Cristeros were massacred by the thousands, women and children along with the men.
The secret archives opened are on the period that immediately followed the persecution of the Cristeros: a flagrant act of selective memory that greatly resembles the way the “Vendeen genocide” is treated in France.
Sources: Le Monde / FSSPX.News – 3/12/2019
