Our after-work softball team is named Cristeros for the Mexican Catholics who organized a heroic armed rebellion against the Masonic and Marxist government of Mexico in the late 1920s. Today’s memorial is a saint dear to me from this period of terrible persecution: the young boy, Jose Sanchez del Rio. I tell his story here in a piece I wrote long before I worked for Catholic Answers.If you keep up with world Catholic news, you know this very kind of persecution is underway in Nigeria. We, myself included, go day to day thinking, “It will never happen here.” Well, an embarrassed FBI is trying to walk back an internal memo implying that Catholics who are devoted to the Latin Mass are threats to national security. It happened in Spain, in France, in Italy, in England, in Switzerland, in Sweden. It’s underway in the Middle East and Africa.Sam Johnson or Plato or both said we don’t need to be taught as much as reminded. Martyrs’ stories are the best kind of reminder: sobering and inspiring at the same time. The Church will walk the same via dolorosa as her Founder.It’s an honor to fight alongside all of my colleagues, both in our ministry and on the diamond, in our own Cristiada. Viva Cristo Rey!
Image Credit: AlexandLeigh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped).