Cristero War (1926-1929): Mexico's Church-State Conflict

The Cristero War was a rebellion by Catholic peasants and townspeople against the Mexican government that lasted from 1926 to 1929. It began when President Plutarco Elías Calles strictly enforced the anticlerical articles of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 and the bishops suspended public worship in protest. The fighting, concentrated in western Mexico, cost tens of thousands of lives before a US-brokered settlement in June 1929.

Causes

Tension between the Mexican state and the Catholic Church went back to the liberal reforms of the nineteenth century. The 1917 Constitution, written during the Mexican Revolution, went further: it denied churches legal personality, banned religious orders and church-run primary schools, required priests to be Mexican-born and allowed states to limit the number of clergy.

These rules were only partly enforced until Calles, a firm anticlerical, became president in December 1924. In June 1926 he issued a decree, known as the Calles Law, that set criminal penalties for violations, ordered the registration of priests and banned clerical dress in public. Catholic activists formed the National League for the Defence of Religious Liberty and organised an economic boycott. The bishops, with the approval of the Vatican, suspended all public worship from 31 July 1926, the day the law came into force.

The uprising

Scattered armed revolts broke out from August 1926, often after troops closed churches or arrested local Catholics. The League called for a general rising at the start of 1927, and the rebellion spread through Jalisco, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Colima, Zacatecas and neighbouring states. The rebels took the name Cristeros from their cry, “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” (“Long live Christ the King”).

Most Cristeros were small farmers, rancheros and villagers, poorly armed at first and fighting as guerrillas in familiar mountain terrain. Women’s organisations, notably the Women’s Brigades of St Joan of Arc, smuggled ammunition and supplies. The federal army controlled the cities and railways, while the countryside of the Bajío and the Los Altos region of Jalisco became rebel territory. The government responded with reprisals and the forced relocation of rural people into concentrated settlements in some areas.

Violence was committed on both sides. Federal troops executed prisoners and priests, while Cristero bands killed teachers and attacked trains, including a notorious attack near La Barca, Jalisco, in April 1927 in which many passengers died.

Key people

• Plutarco Elías Calles (1877-1945), president 1924-1928 and the dominant political figure until the mid-1930s.
• Enrique Gorostieta (1890-1929), a former federal general hired in 1927 to command the Cristero forces; killed in an ambush on 2 June 1929.
• Anacleto González Flores (1888-1927), Catholic lay leader in Guadalajara, executed in April 1927; beatified in 2005.
• Miguel Pro (1891-1927), Jesuit priest executed without trial in Mexico City on 23 November 1927; beatified in 1988.
• Emilio Portes Gil (1890-1978), interim president who concluded the 1929 settlement.
• Dwight Morrow (1873-1931), US ambassador who mediated between government and church.

The 1929 arrangements

By 1928-1929 the Cristeros fielded tens of thousands of fighters, with estimates for their peak strength commonly put at 20,000 to 50,000, and the war had reached a stalemate. President-elect Álvaro Obregón was assassinated by a young Catholic militant, José de León Toral, on 17 July 1928, deepening the crisis. At the same time a military rebellion in 1929 showed the government’s need for peace.

Dwight Morrow, helped by the American priest John J. Burke, brokered talks between Portes Gil and the archbishop Leopoldo Ruiz y Flores and bishop Pascual Díaz. The resulting arreglos (“arrangements”) were announced on 21 June 1929. The laws were not repealed, but the government promised to apply them in a conciliatory spirit, allowed religious instruction inside churches and offered amnesty to the rebels. Church bells rang again at the end of June. Many Cristeros laid down their arms reluctantly, and a number of their leaders were later killed despite the amnesty.

Consequences and legacy

Estimates of the dead vary, but around 90,000 combatant deaths on both sides is a commonly cited figure, with further civilian losses and large-scale migration to cities and the United States. A smaller second rising, known as La Segunda, flared in the mid-1930s when anticlerical policies revived. Relations eased from the late 1930s, and in 1992 constitutional reforms gave churches legal recognition and Mexico established diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

The Catholic Church has since honoured many victims as martyrs: Pope John Paul II canonised 25 martyrs of the period in 2000, and further beatifications followed in 2005. The war remains a sensitive subject in Mexican memory.

Timeline

• 1926, 14 June: Calles issues the decree known as the Calles Law.
• 1926, 31 July: The law takes effect; bishops suspend public worship.
• 1926, August: First armed uprisings in western Mexico.
• 1927, January: General rising called by the League for the Defence of Religious Liberty.
• 1927, 23 November: Father Miguel Pro is executed in Mexico City.
• 1928, 17 July: President-elect Obregón is assassinated.
• 1929, 2 June: Cristero commander Enrique Gorostieta is killed.
• 1929, 21 June: The arreglos end the war.

Why it matters

The Cristero War was the most serious armed conflict over religion in twentieth-century Latin America. It showed the limits of the revolutionary state’s power in the Catholic countryside and pushed Mexico towards an uneasy compromise between church and state that lasted for six decades.