OPINION:
We celebrated Decoration Day, or, as it is known nowadays, Memorial Day, earlier this week. It is, of course, fitting that the nation and its citizens set aside a day dedicated to the solemn remembrance of those who died in our wars.
As an adjunct to that remembrance, it also seems fitting to memorialize the honored dead of the ongoing struggle between the church militant and the powers and principalities of this world.
Such remembrance is especially salient this year, as it has been 100 years since the great Cristero War in Mexico, which started in earnest in the summer of 1926. On July 31 of that year, in response to pressure from the Mexican government, all Catholic churches closed.
Two weeks later, the government began to arrest and execute priests who were guilty of providing the sacraments to their parishioners.
The first martyr was Father Luis Batis, who was executed with three laymen on Aug. 15, 1926. The final martyr was Father Pedro de Jesus Maldonado, who was beaten to death after hearing confessions on Ash Wednesday, which, in 1937, fell on Feb. 10.
In the intervening 10-and-a-half years, more than 5,000 Catholics were executed by the government because they refused to renounce or otherwise walk away from their faith. By some estimates, more than 90,000 Mexicans died during the conflict.
We often think of religious persecution as something that happened long ago and in places far from the New World. But there were more martyrs in the 20th century than in any other century. Not surprisingly, communists in various places were responsible for most of that.
Even now, Catholics, both unknown and prominent, languish in Chinese prison camps. There’s no telling why, on his recent trip to China, President Trump didn’t say something about the incarceration of Jimmy Lai, who is guilty only of telling the truth in his newspaper, opposing the Chinese regime and, worst of all, hanging on tenaciously to his Catholic faith.
In this, he is not alone. The thousands of Mexicans who died or were executed in the Cristero War in the last century in Mexico joined the millions who have died for their faith across the centuries. This, then, is the army that our Lord has assembled. It includes people from just about every nationality and ethnicity on this planet: Jewish fishermen, Roman soldiers, French nuns, German priests, Chinese newspapermen, English noblemen, Irish peasants and on and on.
No matter where you look, the rulers of this world don’t seem to care much for the silent, terrible witness of believers.
Who can blame them? Who wants to have the distance between what they are doing and what they should be doing measured and advertised on the routine? Those executed in Mexico 100 years ago typically shouted “Vivo Cristo Rey!” (“Long live Christ the King!”) as they were shot or bayoneted. Perhaps the regime in Mexico in 1926 understood how fragile it really was when matched against that sort of sentiment.
Once you conclude Christ is the king, civilian ruling authorities — especially those in maximalist regimes — tend to get nervous.
So, as you think about those American soldiers, sailors, Marine and airmen who died so that we can live our lives in peace and freedom, it is worth taking a moment to remember the millions of people across the centuries who refused to surrender their faith, irrespective of the cost and in the face of resistance from the secular world, so that we could be saved. They too deserve remembrance.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
Follow the author
Please read our comment policy before commenting.