The price of liberty, even within a Church, is eternal vigilance. – Graham Greene (1904-91)
CHURCH BELLS CLANGED furiously through Sahuayo, as enemy forces spurred on horses galloping hard across the cobblestones, charging into the Mexican town.
Weapon-wielding, hostile combatants – local corrupt politicians backed by federal forces – had strategized to violently disperse all Catholics, gathered, clamoring for the return of their churches, on the morning of August 4, 1926.
“Dios y mi derecho! Viva Cristo Rey y la Virgen de Guadalupe!” shouted a man in a cloud of dust under the blazing summer sun, adopting the phrase “God and My Right,” dating back to England’s King Richard I (1157-1199), known as Richard the Lionheart, who claimed that no one – other than God – had authority over him.
That first battle cry elicited ruthless retaliation with rounds of gunfire that killed several faithful during the conflict that erupted in the center of town, between the plaza and the Parish of Apostle Santiago – with its stunning trinity of domes – named for Saint James the Greater, the town’s patron saint.
The attack that day, on August 4, was part of the political campaign in Mexico that promised to redistribute land and wealth, reminiscent of the Bolshevik promise of “Peace, Land, Bread,” a lie repeated often by Vladimir Lenin (born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, 1870-1924) in order to win support of the masses, but, in actuality, wrought War, Requisitions, Hunger among the countless victims of Communist authoritarianism.
Local men, women and children – mostly unarmed – fought back with bare hands, sticks, stones, quicklime and even ground chili. Contradictory and confusing gun-law legalese in Article 10, of the 1917 Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, had enabled the Revolutionary State to interpret the section to its prejudicial benefit and to the predetermined detriment of the powerless: rewarding criminals, while punishing the compliant.
As the clash continued, more than 15 ranchers from the Guaracha Hacienda – in the outlying countryside to the southeast – heeded the alarm bells, quickly mounted their horses and raced to help their besieged brethren.
A crowd of faithful surrounded the Parish of Apostle Santiago, to defend it from the federal troops – made up of ne’er-do-well ex-convicts and other malfeasants. When one of the officers neared the entrance of the church, Amada Ceja rushed to slam the doors to bar the officer, who quickly retaliated with a bullet to the back of Ceja’s head, instantly killing the man.
Just a few blocks west of the Parish church, stood the stunning Sanctuary of Guadalupe atop a long-and-steep stairway. Defended by several men, including teenager Jose Trinidad “Trino” Flores Espinosa, they continued to fight until forced to flee when overpowered by the assailants.
In the northern part of town, Dolores “Lola” Gudino stood outside Sacred Heart Church – with its flat, red-brick façade – and fired her pistol at Rafael Picazo Sanchez (1893-1931), one of the caudillos, those in the criminal class who connived their way into the corrupt ruling class of the Socialist regime, which tends to attract those afflicted with personality disorders such as the Dark Triad complex, marked by the trio of negative, anti-social traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy.
“You are a disgraceful persecutor of your parents’ religion!” Gudino screamed at Picazo, born into a devout Catholic family, but he later apostatized and joined Socialist factions as a local city councilman and leader of the area’s Agrarian Mass Movement: organized hatemongers who agitated for the State confiscation and nationalization of private property and private businesses, which, somehow, all too often, ended up not as collective property, but as private property of the politically powerful.
During the clash, Catholics did their best to hold back the federal forces, whose leader, General Jose de Jesus Ferreira, perceived that he and his men could not gain control of the situation or of the properties and called for backup from troops stationed in Jiquilpan, 5 miles to the south of Sahuayo.
The attack that day, on August 4, was part of the political campaign in Mexico that promised to redistribute land and wealth, reminiscent of the Bolshevik promise of “Peace, Land, Bread,” a lie repeated often by Vladimir Lenin (born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, 1870-1924) in order to win support of the masses, but, in actuality, wrought War, Requisitions, Hunger among the countless victims of Communist authoritarianism in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922-91), which preferred the disposable individual enslaved by the State over the sacred individual endowed by God.
In Mexico, the nationwide Law for Reforming the Penal Code had just gone into effect days earlier, on July 31, 1926. Commonly referred to as Calles Law after Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles, who enacted the legislation, the law specifically persecuted the clergy and targeted the Church, whose property – land, buildings, treasures – were to be seized by local town officials and claimed as State property.
In Mexico, the nationwide Law for Reforming the Penal Code had just gone into effect days earlier, on July 31, 1926. Commonly referred to as Calles Law after Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles (born Francisco Plutarco Elias Campuzano, 1877-1945), who enacted the legislation, the law specifically persecuted the clergy and targeted the Church, whose property – land, buildings, treasures – were to be seized by local town officials and claimed as State property.
On the same day that Calles Law went into effect, all clergy withdrew from the churches, per orders of the nation’s Church hierarchy; otherwise, the priests would have been colluding with the Socialist government against the Roman Catholic Church. Places of worship would remain open, if possible, but only under the direction and care of the laity. The clergy would continue to pastor, with all the sacraments, wherever, whenever they could, but in secret, in the underground Church.
However, on August 1, the day after Calles Law went into effect, local authorities grabbed control of all churches in Sahuayo – which happened elsewhere – and refused entry to the faithful.
With the takeover, the authoritarian regime intended to supplant the traditional religious orthodoxy with its own religious orthodoxy: a religious belief system without God, without scruples, without truth, without reason, controlled through oppression, force, bloodshed. Through the suppression of traditional religious institutions and through the smashing of the old social order, the regime gained greater control over the new social order created by the orchestrated chaos – Dialectical Materialism – conducted by dictators beatified with mythological hagiographies, extolling their Revolutionary virtues.
Barred from their churches, the powerless residents of Sahuayo – a large, robust, religious town of more than 10,000 – rebelled against the powerful. On August 3, they gathered, surrounded their churches, protested and demanded that their religious buildings be returned to them.
In response, Mayor Francisco Garcia – a worshiper of Socialism and a disciple of Calles – decided to smash the demonstrators with savagery. For Socialists, violence is always an easy and preferred means to destabilize society and rip apart its mutually beneficial social contract.
“Break up the resistance!” Garcia ordered, but despite the heavy show of force against the faithful, on that August 4, the political thugs and their military might failed to seize control and requested backup.
Federal General Tranquilino Mendoza Barragan (c.1889-1953) heeded the call for assistance and charged into Sahuayo with guns blasting the next day, August 5, accompanied by his 50th Regiment.
The first person captured was Jose “Pepe” Sanchez Ramirez, a former mayor of Sahuayo, president of the Parish’s Catholic Action and head of the local chapter of the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty.
Mendoza accosted Sanchez, cornered in the courtyard of the Parish of Apostle Santiago.
“Take charge of the church,” Mendoza ordered.
“I am not in charge of the things of God; only He is,” Sanchez answered.
“Shoot him! Inside the Parish church!” a furious Mendoza ordered.
And so he was, at 7 p.m., on August 5, executed, by gunshot, in the sacristy, where his body lay.
In Sahuayo, the shooting and the killing of Catholics stretched on for several days. It was barbaric. It was brutal. So many victims. Even young children beheaded.
Enraged by the cold-blooded murder of his brother, Ignacio Sanchez Ramirez and other townsmen fled Sahuayo the next day, August 6, and gathered in the hills, where Sanchez organized a small army of Cristeros, faithful Catholic soldiers. He soon headed the Sahuayo sector as general. A handsome man, with neat hair and a thick mustache, he donned a military uniform, elegantly accented with debonair cufflinks, impressive leather riding boots and a formidable bullet belt cinched around his waist. He was a member of the Catholic Association of Mexican Youth (Asociacion Catolica de la Juventud Mexicana, ACJM) and president for several years of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
In Sahuayo, the shooting and the killing of Catholics stretched on for several days. It was barbaric. It was brutal. So many victims. Even young children beheaded. The Callistas grabbed control of the town and of the churches and wreaked havoc on the people and the properties, which they transformed into barracks for soldiers, stables for horses, cantinas for borrachos and whorehouses for the ever-present parade of women who traveled camp to camp with the men.
Outraged over the inhumane treatment, many faithful rallied to join the Catholic fighting forces and to serve under Sanchez, who sought to enlist the rank and file with virtuous men of good Christian morals.
Even the general’s nephew Jose “Joselito” Sanchez del Rio yearned to join the fight.
Even the general’s nephew Jose “Joselito” Sanchez del Rio yearned to join the fight.
Young, Joselito was only 13 when the battle broke out in Sahuayo, where he was born, on March 28, 1913, to parents Macario Sanchez Sanchez and Maria del Rio Arteaga. Like many others in the area, some of his family worked on the Guaracha Hacienda, established in 1643, including his father and one of his uncles, Father Ignacio Sanchez Sanchez, the hacienda’s chaplain, who years earlier had officially witnessed the marriage of Joselito’s parents, in the parish of Villamar, and recently received a severe bullet wound to his leg during the battle against the Callistas.
A joyful boy in a happy home, Joselito had three brothers: Macario, Guillermo and Miguel, and three sisters: Maria Concepcion, Maria Luisa and Celia. He attended an all-boys school as well as catechism classes, in Sahuayo, an area that had a long history of Catholicism, begun in the 1500s, after three mendicant religious communities – the Order of Friars Minor, the Order of Preachers and the Augustinians – arrived in the region from Spain.
Spain’s voyages to the New World began after its coffers were freed up following the end of the Granada War (1482-92), led by Queen Isabella (1451-1504) and King Ferdinand II (1452-1516) against the Moors, who were defeated and expelled from the Iberian Peninsula, thus ending the nearly 800 years of Islamic rule in Iberia, in 1492, the same year that Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) sailed West to avoid the Muslims in the East, who had blocked land routes to India decades earlier.
As fortune hunters settled in New Spain, reports wended their way back to Queen Isabella – known affectionately as Isabella the Catholic – about the horrific fate of the indigenous at the bloody hands of the gold-grubbing powermongers.
Immediately, the Catholic Queen began her fight for the freedom and for the benevolent treatment of the natives and continued to do so, even after her death.
In the Codicil of her Last Will and Testament, of 1504, she demanded that her successors “do not consent or permit that the Indians living in and inhabiting those said Indies and mainland be persecuted in their persons and in their properties; but instead, I order that they be treated well and justly. And if they have received any distress, that it be remedied and corrected.”
Her widower, King Ferdinand II, continued the humanitarian fight and promulgated, on December 27, 1512, the Laws of Burgos, which forbade slavery.
And yet, the get-rich-quick schemers failed to tamp down their uncontrollable ambitions and exploitative, anti-social behaviors, which forced the Church to continue its fight for the humane treatment of the natives.
In the Encyclical “Sublimus Dei: On the Enslavement and Evangelization of Indians,” signed on May 29, 1537, Pope Paul II (born Alessandro Farnese, 1468-1549) called each of those who enslaved another as an “enemy of the human race” and ordered that “Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be, in any way, enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect.”
But the horrors of the power-hungry profiteers in the ruling class continued.
Joselito – just one of the countless impacted by Calles’ persecution – felt compelled to do whatever little he could to help lift the oppressive force hammering Catholics. Right after the first blood battle in Sahuayo, he began coaxing his parents to allow him to join the war.
In defense of the natives, Dominican Friar Bartolome de Las Casas (Order of Preachers, 1484-1566) voiced his grave concerns to King Charles I of Spain (King Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, 1500-1558) who issued, on November 20, 1542, the “New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians,” which demanded that the indigenous be well taken care of, not be enslaved, and those enslaved be released immediately.
However, in New Spain – as throughout the rest of the world – evil forces of the politically powerful proceeded to indulge their plutomania and their megalomania, wielding ferocious domination over the weak and the vulnerable, and continued to do so throughout the centuries, forcing generation upon generation to campaign for the defense of freedom – which is never guaranteed, never granted, to anyone, anywhere on earth.
In the 1920s, an empowered Calles – a self-proclaimed Catholophobic Bolshevik who proved no better than the brutal conquistadors of the 16th century – was rebuked by Pope Pius XI (Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, 1857-1939) in “Iniquis Afflictisque: On the Persecution of the Church in Mexico,” promulgated on November 18, 1926, condemning the regime’s destruction of the Church and the religicide of Her faithful.
Joselito – just one of the countless impacted by Calles’ persecution – felt compelled to do whatever little he could to help lift the oppressive force hammering Catholics. Right after the first blood battle in Sahuayo, he began coaxing his parents to allow him to join the war.
“It has never been so easy to win heaven,” he repeatedly tried to assure them, and, finally, after nearly a year, 14-year-old Joselito received parental permission, on the condition that he act only as an aide-de-camp, standard-bearer or bugler.
“It has never been so easy to win heaven,” he repeatedly tried to assure them, and, finally, after nearly a year, 14-year-old Joselito received parental permission, on the condition that he act only as an aide-de-camp, standard-bearer or bugler.
Right away, he presented himself, with a good horse, to his uncle, who refused the teen’s request, but encouraged him to write to General Prudencio Mendoza Alcazar, of Rio Huertas, and to General Anatolio Partida Pulido (1890-1980), of San Jose de Gracia, and to explain to them that he wanted to help, no matter how lowly the position.
Joselito wrote, but neither responded.
Not discouraged and hoping to join forces elsewhere, he and his friend Jose Trinidad “Trino” Flores Espinosa departed for Cotija late one afternoon, in the summer of 1927, under the cover of darkness to evade detection. With only a few possessions, they each carried a few pesos and a few articles of clothing wrapped in their serapes. But Trino also brought along a .22-caliber pistol.
Cotija was about a day’s travel along the mountainous bridle paths. Through the night, they rode their horses, headed toward Santa Maria del Oro. At dawn, they stopped between San Diego and Quitupan, where they asked to buy milk from some cowboys, who poured the liquid into jar lids. The teens pulled out bread to eat with their milk, before continuing on, riding along the path under a canopy of mountain pines.
Out of nowhere, a man with a gun suddenly appeared and challenged them, suspecting them as spies.
“Quien vive?” he demanded.
More men emerged, bearing rifles, all waiting for the response: “Viva Cristo Rey!”
Abruptly stopped, the startled teens were briefly interrogated. They explained that they were Sahuayneses, that they wanted to join the Cristeros and that they were looking for the esteemed General Prudencio Mendoza Alcazar. Escorted to a second checkpoint, they were again interrogated, and before too long, one of the Cristeros who knew Joselito’s father recognized and vouched for the teen.
Believed to be more of a hindrance than a help because of their youth, the Cristeros told Joselito and Trino that they should leave their horses and return home or help the women’s brigades by bringing wartime necessities to the men fighting on the front lines.
But the two insisted that they could be very helpful around camp and that they did not want to join the Feminine Brigades of Saint Joan of Arc, a women’s secret military society founded on June 21, 1927, at the Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopan, in Zapopan, in the Mexican state of Jalisco. The women’s brigades helped the Cristeros by carrying weapons, ammunition, food and other necessities under their petticoats.
“If you want, you can stay, but know well what you’re up against,” they were warned, when they were finally, begrudgingly accepted into the ranks, as backpackers, two-legged mules.
That first night, they happily wrapped themselves in their serapes and slept contentedly on the hard ground, near a campfire. After waking the next morning, they readily carried water, stoked the fires, heated tortillas, served coffee, washed dishes, fed horses, cleaned weapons and filled bandoliers.
“We have to fight with faith. If one day we are martyrs, we will see each other up there,” he encouraged his fellow Cristeros.
Before too long, Trino and his .22 were drafted into the front lines, while Joselito was forced to stay behind at camp in the hills, where he helped out, learned how to play the battalion bugle and prayed the rosary each afternoon along with the soldiers, who christened him into the Cristero War with the nombre de guerra “Tarcisius,” after the 12-year-old altar boy attacked and beaten to death while transporting the Holy Eucharist, in Rome, in the 3rd century.
“We have to fight with faith. If one day we are martyrs, we will see each other up there,” he encouraged his fellow Cristeros.
Eventually, under the protection of and at the side of General Luis Guizar Morfin, he was entrusted to carry into battles the Cristero banner – the Mexican flag with an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the middle – and often sang, “To Heaven, to Heaven, to Heaven, I want to go!”
And then, on February 6, 1928, a skirmish ensued in the hills between Cotija and Jiquilpan.
Federal forces under the command of General Mendoza – who had successfully seized control of Sahuayo 18 months prior – outmanned and outgunned the Cristeros, who under the command of Guizar, had to resort to guerrilla tactics, using their knowledge of the local terrain to their advantage. Soon overwhelmed, Guizar ordered a hasty withdrawal, but it was too late. Callistas blasted away with machine guns, fatally striking the horse under the general, who quickly hopped off to avoid being crushed by his dying mount.
Close by, with flag in hand, Joselito shouted, “My General! Here is my horse!” as he dismounted and offered the reins.
“Muchacho! Run! Go away!”
“I am young. You are needed more than I am! Viva Cristo Rey!”
Reluctantly, the Cristero leader accepted the reins and galloped away, as Joselito stayed behind, firing a few shots before he ran out of ammunition and found himself surrounded by federal troops, who tied him up, pushed him around, hit him, insulted him.
Another teen, Lorenzo, was also arrested.
A firing squad was quickly formed, but the Callista general halted the execution of the teenagers; instead, he encouraged them to join the federal army.
“They arrested me, because I ran out of ammunition, but I haven’t given up!” Joselito responded to the suggestion.
“My dear Mama, I was taken prisoner in combat on this day. At this time, I think I’m going to die, but I don’t mind, Mama. Resign yourself to the Will of God. I die happy, because I die on the battlefield at the side of Our Lord.”
Locked up in the Cotija prison, he found himself in a cold and damp cell, with iron bars on the windows, vaulted ceilings and 3-foot-thick walls made of lime and stone. Sitting alongside Lorenzo, his comrade-in-arms, he ate some stale tortillas with salt, attempted to sleep, entrusted himself to the Virgin of Guadalupe, found inner peace and wrote a letter to his mother:
“Cotija, Michoacan, Monday, February 6, 1928.
“My dear Mama,
“I was taken prisoner in combat on this day. At this time, I think I’m going to die, but I don’t mind, Mama. Resign yourself to the Will of God. I die happy, because I die on the battlefield at the side of Our Lord. About my death, don’t worry. That would mortify me. Tell my brothers to follow the example that their youngest brother leaves them, and you do the Will of God. Have courage, and send me your blessing along with that of my father.
“Give my regards to everyone for the last time, and receive for the last time the heart of your son who loves you so much and wants to see you before dying.
“Jose Sanchez del Rio.”
The day after his capture, he and his cellmate Lorenzo were rounded up and ordered transferred to Sahuayo.
During the arduous journey around Cerro de San Francisco, Joselito secretly handed his letter to one of the many women along the way who watched the prisoners pass by and offered them food and water. That woman passed the letter to an errand boy in Jiquilpan, who handed it to a laundress, who gave it to Father Antonio Rojas, who delivered it to its intended: Joselito’s mother.
That afternoon, he and Lorenzo arrived in Sahuayo, where the two were locked up in the baptistry in the single-nave Parish of Apostle Santiago, where he had been baptized, by Father Luis Amezcua Calleja, on April 3, 1913. For his First Holy Communion, in 1922, his family followed a Mexican tradition and selected a godfather for the occasion. The man chosen: Picazo, before he turned against his faith, his family, his friends and became a local politician.
“They’re going to give us time for everything, and then they’ll shoot us. Don’t back down or be afraid of the pain.”
Picazo met with his godson and made two offers: relocate north of the border, or attend the Heroic Military College for a future as an officer with the federal army.
“I’d rather be dead! I’m not going with the changos! Never with the persecutor of the Church! If you let me go, tomorrow I will return to the Cristeros! Viva Cristo Rey! Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!”
When ordered to apostatize, he shouted, “Viva Cristo Rey! I’d rather die first. Shoot me!”
Before the Cristero War, Picazo had begun to finagle his way into power after he and two other troublemakers plotted to rid Sahuayo of an indigenous priest, Father Felipe Torres, accusing him of womanizing, proven false. The town’s anti-clericals rewarded his evil deeds with lucrative business opportunities. He continued to curry favor with politicians, who wrangled a letter of recommendation from Mexico’s then-President Alvaro Obregon Salido (1880-1928) – during his first term, 1920-24 – for an appointment in Jiquilpan, as a councilman, which had been imposed as a cacique – a local, indigenous political boss.
With Picazo cracking the whip, the area became more Revolutionary, especially during the Calles years, 1924-28, when Obregon’s dedazo ruled. Picazo was expected to persecute the Church, the faithful and even his own godson, all considered political enemies of the regime.
After learning about Joselito’s arrest and detention, his father and his Aunt Maria Sanchez Olmedo rushed to the church, but with the facility locked and guarded, the two were unable to see him. His father pleaded for his freedom, but the recalcitrant Picazo denied the request; instead, he demanded 5,000 gold pieces for the teen’s release.
When learning about his own ransom, Joselito managed to slip his Aunt Maria a message to pass along to his father: “Do not pay a single peso. Pray for me and for the cause of Christ.”
With the former church occupied by federal and local Callistas, the soldiers filled the premises with horses, manure, military equipment, firewood, a three-stone cooking fire with a cast iron comal, ashes, food scraps, empty booze bottles, gunpowder and latrine.
“Kill me, too!” Joselito shouted, as he watched his cellmate dropped and dangling, stiffly, at the end of the rope, hanging from the old cedar branch. But Picazo did not want Joselito dead; he only wanted him tormented into submission.
But what bothered Joselito most were the three fighting cocks that perched on the high altar, the communion rail and the Tabernacle, where large mounds of poultry manure piled up. In the middle of the night, in the dark, when the opportunity arose, he quietly approached the roosters, and, one by one, wrung their necks.
The next day, February 8, Picazo arrived at the church and discovered that his money-making birds had been killed, grabbed their executioner by the arm, shook him and shouted:
“Do you know what you’ve done! Do you know what a rooster is worth!”
“The only thing I know is that the house of God is not a barnyard,” he answered.
Enraged, Picazo threatened his godson.
“I am ready for anything. Shoot me, so that I may be before Our Lord,” answered Joselito, slapped violently in the face by one of Picazo’s men.
Witnessing everything, Lorenzo was terrorized. When the two were left alone again, Joselito encouraged his cellmate who, from fear of death, had lost his appetite and was unable to eat any food.
“Let’s eat,” Joselito coaxed “They’re going to give us time for everything, and then they’ll shoot us. Don’t back down or be afraid of the pain.”
Around 5:30 later that afternoon the two were removed from the cell. Perhaps from fear or perhaps from shock, they seemed almost unable to walk – slowly, with a lachrymose Lorenzo dragged along by the guards – while escorted to the plaza, to the hanging trees, two old cedars.
Before joining the Cristeros, one day when Joselito walked with his mother through the town plaza, he looked reflectively at the two cedars, where it was common to see the bodies of lynched Cristeros – victims of anti-Catholic factions – swinging from the boughs of the century-old trees.
“These cedars should be called the Gates of Heaven,” he told his mother at that time.
Now a prisoner, standing before the trees, he was about to enter the Gates of Heaven.
Without a trial, the Callistas first tightened a hangman’s noose around Lorenzo’s neck.
“Kill me, too!” Joselito shouted, as he watched his cellmate dropped and dangling, stiffly, at the end of the rope, hanging from the old cedar branch. But Picazo did not want Joselito dead; he only wanted him tormented into submission.
“No noises. No gunshots,” Picazo ordered his men. So as to not incur the wrath of the locals, Picazo planned to have Joselito executed secretly, in the dead of night.
Executioners cut down Lorenzo’s body, threw him on the back of a donkey and transported him to the Municipal Cemetery of Sahuayo, where gravedigger Luis Gomez noticed something out of the ordinary.
“I don’t have the grave ready. Please, let me know in advance next time,” he grumbled, admonishing the two executioners, as he grabbed a pick and shovel, watching Joselito escorted back to his cell.
All alone again in the cemetery, as the sun started to set and the sky began to darken, he retrieved a pot of arnica and a jug of water from his sack. He walked over to the body of Lorenzo, splashed water onto his face, poured some into his mouth, and rubbed arnica on his neck to help revive the teen, who had merely fainted while hanged. The gravedigger also shared his food with him, giving him some bean tacos with cheese and salt and a small bitter orange, which Lorenzo, with a voracious appetite, ate, peel and all.
“Look, the scare is over. Run away now, so no one will see you. The soldiers will think that you’re in that grave,” the gravedigger told him as he pointed to a mound of shoveled earth.
Lorenzo fled and walked all night to reunite with his fellow Cristeros, who, thereafter, called him “Lazurus,” after Lazarus of Bethany (?-30), raised from the dead four days after entombment, in the 1st century. When back in combat, Lorenzo taunted the enemy with, “Here I am, the hanged man!”
Joselito’s death sentence finally ordered. Same day execution.
Around 6 in the evening, guards removed him from the baptistry and transferred him to the Refugio Inn, located on Santiago Street, across from the church. Reunited one last time with his arrogant and vengeful godfather, the teen was granted one final wish: paper and pencil to write a farewell letter.
“Sahuayo, February 10, 1928.
“Senora Maria Sanchez Olmedo.
“Dear Aunt: I have been sentenced to death. At 8:30 tonight, the moment I have longed for will arrive. Thank you for all the favors that you and Magdalena did for me. I am not able to write to my mother, so would you do me the favor of writing to her? Tell Magdalena that I have received permission to see her one last time, and I believe she won’t refuse to come. Give my regards to everyone for me, and receive, as always and lastly, the heart of your nephew who loves you very much and wants to see you.
“Cristo Vive, Cristo Reina, Cristo Impera.
“Viva Cristo Rey y Santa Maria de Guadalupe!
“Jose Sanchez del Rio, who died in defense of his faith.
“Don’t stop coming. Adios.”
At 8 that evening, Magdalena Sanchez Olmedo visited Jose and brought him his last supper. Hidden inside the bread, a single Eucharist, the Viaticum, his Provision for The Way.
9 p.m., town curfew.
11 p.m., sentence confirmed.
Following orders to keep the killing quiet, the executioners drew their blades and repeatedly stabbed the teen in his neck, his chest, his back. With each stab, Joselito cried, “Viva Cristo Rey!” Until he yelled no more. Joselito was 14.
“No noises. No gunshots,” Picazo ordered his men. So as to not incur the wrath of the locals, Picazo planned to have Joselito executed secretly, in the dead of night.
Inside the Inn stood several men, torturers. Two were:
Rafael “El Zamorano” Gil Martinez, Picazo’s bagman, a lucrative position, because he not only owned a large house at 130 Matamoros Street, but he also had land in the Cienega de Chapala, with cattle and horses.
Alfredo “La Aguada” Amezcua Novoa, a modern-day “Saul of Tarsus,” persecutor of Christians. La Aguada frequently rode up into the hills looking for anyone he believed to be Cristeros. Anyone found would be lynched, hanged without a trial.
The sadists brutally beat Joselito, tortured him, flayed the skin on the soles of his feet, as he shouted, all the while, “Viva Cristo Rey!”
Finally, the end neared. From the Refugio Inn, several uniformed guards – some carrying heavy rifles, others bearing holstered pistols – escorted their prisoner through the Portal Morelos, in front of the plaza, and turned right onto Calle Constitution. For 10 blocks they continued, eastward, to the Municipal Cemetery. Military boots echoed on the cobblestones.
Forced to walk barefoot with the open wounds on the soles of his feet, Joselito shouted exclamations of joy as his executioners hit him, pushed him, insulted him, mocked him along his Via Dolorosa.
“We are going to kill you!” they taunted.
“Viva Cristo Rey y la Virgen de Guadalupe!” he cheered.
At the cemetery, Gomez the gravedigger waited with pick and shovel near the open grave. He had been alerted.
“Where is my place?” asked Joselito after he entered the cemetery and then walked to his grave, where the earth waited with open mouth.
“What are we to tell your father?” La Aguada provoked.
“We shall see each other in Heaven. Viva Cristo Rey!”
Following orders to keep the killing quiet, the executioners drew their blades and repeatedly stabbed the teen in his neck, his chest, his back.
With each stab, Joselito cried, “Viva Cristo Rey!” Until he yelled no more.
“Cowards! They are murderers! Do this to a boy, who just defended his faith,” the gravedigger lamented. “At each stab, he shouted, ‘Viva Cristo Rey!’”
El Zamorano, the chief executioner, couldn’t resist a tiro de gracia, drew his small-caliber pistol from its holster, slammed the muzzle behind the teen’s right ear and fired.
They kicked the collapsed body into the grave.
It was 11:30 at night, Friday, February 10, 1928.
After the executioners marched out, the gravedigger waited until 1 in the morning, when it was safe to close the gates behind him and rush down the deserted road to the residence of Father Sanchez, Joselito’s uncle.
The sun was beginning to rise when the gravedigger and the priest arrived at the cemetery, grabbed shovels and removed the earth covering the body.
“It is not possible,” said the priest.
“Cowards! They are murderers! Do this to a boy, who just defended his faith,” the gravedigger lamented. “At each stab, he shouted, ‘Viva Cristo Rey!’”
The two men cleaned the body and wrapped him in a shroud.
The gravedigger suggested that a piece of paper with the teen’s name be placed in a small jar and buried with him.
“Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen,” prayed the priest.
Joselito was 14.
Three years later, on January 22, 1931, Picazo – who had moved up politically from a local city councilman to a national congressman – traveled with a friend, Enrique Prado, on a train from Mexico City to Sahuayo. Manuel Cuesta Gallardo, owner of the Palmita Hacienda, decided to settle an old grudge, walked up to Picazo and shot him point-blank right in the stomach.
“Enrique! Get me a priest! I want a priest!” begged the 38-year-old mortally wounded man.
On the train traveled Father Ramon Martinez Silva, garbed in street clothing, as the wearing of cassocks had been outlawed. He rushed to the side of Picazo, who confessed and received the Sacrament of Holy Unction, Last Rites, before dying in Prado’s arms.
________
Miscellanea and facts were pulled from the following:
“Camino al Cielo,” by Alfredo Vega. “El Nino Testigo de Cristo Rey: Jose Sanchez del Rio, Martir Cristero,” by Luis Laurean Cervanates “San Jose Sanchez del Rio,” by German Orozco Mora.
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