Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
June 27, 2026
To my dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,
and to all the faithful who, through blood, family memory, or grace-filled inspiration, are giving life to the Neo-Cristero movements:
I write to you from the very soil that drank the blood of so many martyrs for Christ the King. My heart, already full from a life devoted to studying and living our sacred history, overflows with gratitude and hope at witnessing what the Holy Spirit is stirring among you: the launch of Cristero.com on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, the planning of gatherings here in Guadalajara, the careful work of preserving names and stories in registries, and the creation of resources so that the flame may never be extinguished again.
Remember with me the days of fire.
In 1926, the government of Plutarco Elías Calles, applying the most radical articles of the 1917 Constitution through the infamous Calles Law, attempted what no previous persecution had fully achieved: to expel the Catholic Church from Mexican public life, from the schools, from the family, and ultimately from the hearts of the people. Churches were padlocked. Priests were hunted. Catholic education was criminalized. The faithful were told, in effect, that Christ had no place in society.
Yet from the ranches of Jalisco, the hills of Guanajuato, and the villages of Michoacán and beyond arose a cry that no power on earth could silence: ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Peasants and ranchers, the women of the Brigadas Femeniles, intellectuals such as Anacleto González Flores, and military leaders such as Enrique Gorostieta took up arms — not for earthly power, but because they refused to live without the Mass, without the sacraments, without the freedom to raise their children in the truth. Priests such as Saint Miguel Agustín Pro went to the firing squad with that same cry on their lips. Young José Sánchez del Río, only fifteen years old, endured unspeakable torture and gave his life rather than deny his King. Twenty-five martyrs were later raised to the altars by Saint John Paul II; many more have been beatified. Their blood became the seed of a Church that would not die.
The war ended in 1929 with the Arreglos, a truce that allowed public worship to resume but left many wounds unhealed. For decades afterward, official Mexican history sought to marginalize or vilify the Cristeros, as though their sacrifice were an embarrassment to the revolutionary narrative. Yet in countless families the memory endured — whispered at home altars, preserved in stories told to children, carried in the hearts of descendants who crossed the border and kept the faith alive in new lands.
That same memory is rising again today.
Nearly a century later, we stand at the centenary of the Cristiada. The challenges have changed in form, but not in essence. Once again there are forces — sometimes clothed in the language of progress, rights, or modernity — that seek to drive Christ from the public square, from education, from law, and from the very definition of the human person and the family. Secularism, moral relativism, the culture of death, and ideologies that contradict the Gospel are the new Calles Laws. They do not always use bullets, but they aim at the same target: the kingship of Christ over every dimension of life.
This is why the Neo-Cristero movements, born of the descendants and of the living memory of those heroes, are so urgently needed by the Catholic Church in our times.
You are the guardians of a flame that official histories once tried to extinguish. By gathering the stories, honoring the martyrs, building websites and conferences, creating prayer cards and educational materials, and forming communities of memory and action, you are doing what the Cristeros themselves did: refusing to let the faith be privatized or forgotten. You remind the whole Church that the laity are not spectators but protagonists in Christ's mission — just as the peasant fighters and lay leaders of the Cristiada were when the hierarchy was constrained.
You show a new generation that fidelity to Christ the King is not a relic of the past, but the most urgent need of the present. The recent youth marches to the monument of Christ the King on the Cerro del Cubilete and the tours of the martyrs' relics through Mexico and the United States are signs that the same spirit is awakening.
Your role is not to repeat the armed conflict of 1926-1929 — for Our Lord is the Prince of Peace — but to wage the spiritual and cultural battle with the same total commitment. Live the Eucharist with burning love. Form your families as true domestic churches. Defend religious freedom and the rights of parents by every lawful means. Proclaim without shame or compromise that Christ is King of hearts, of families, of culture, and of society. Cling to Our Lady of Guadalupe, who accompanied the Cristeros. And may the cry ¡Viva Cristo Rey! resound not only on flags and banners, but in the way you live, vote, educate, and love.
Do not be discouraged by the smallness of beginnings or the weight of opposition. The Cristeros were at first scattered bands; their fidelity shook an empire of unbelief. The blood of the martyrs remains the seed of Christians. The memory you guard is a treasure not only for Mexico, but for the whole Church — especially for the diaspora in Texas and throughout the United States, where so many Cristero families found refuge and new life.
Continue your work with zeal and charity. Remain in communion with the Church. May every initiative — digital, educational, or communal — be ordered to the glory of God and the salvation of souls. In doing so, you will help bring about that renewal of Catholic identity and courage which our times so desperately need.
I impart to you my paternal blessing and the blessing of this land of martyrs. May Saint Miguel Agustín Pro, Blessed José Sánchez del Río, Blessed Anacleto González Flores, and all the holy Cristero martyrs intercede for you. May Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of Mexico and Empress of the Americas, protect every Neo-Cristero effort and make it fruitful beyond all human expectation.
With deep affection in Christ the King,
+ Juan Cardinal Sandoval Íñiguez
¡Viva Cristo Rey!