A 14-year-old boy martyr who was executed in Mexico’s Cristero (Holy) War of the 1920s will become this country’s newest Catholic saint.
According to the Vatican, Pope Francis recently approved a miracle attributed to Jose Sanchez del Rio, the final stage of the process to canonization or sainthood.
It is unlikely that Sanchez del Rio, a member of the Catholic Youth Brigade, ever fired a shot in anger during the rebels’ struggle against the anti-clerical policies of President Elias Calles. A devout Catholic, he had apparently pleaded with his mother to be allowed to join the fight against the federal government’s repressive regime. Some versions of his story say that she eventually relented and gave him permission to join the rebels but only after writing to General Prudencio Mendoza, the leader of the Cristeros in Michoacan, explaining that her son did not know how to fire a weapon but was excellent at cooking beans.
The general finally agreed to allow the boy to become the flag bearer of the troop.
In the heat of a battle at the end of January 1928 in Sahuayo, Michoacan, Sanchez del Rio is believed to have given his horse to Mendoza when his mount was killed under him. Sanchez del Rio is alleged to have told the general, “Take him, even though I may be killed. You need him more than I.”
Government troops captured the boy during that battle but, because of his age, did not shoot him along with the other prisoners. He was locked up in a local church and, under threat of death, pressured to renounce his faith. Also, to his dismay, he found that the church had been converted into a refuge for a local politician’s fighting cocks. Out of anger that God’s house was being abused in this way, he killed the animals, enraging the deputy when he discovered the deed the next day.
Sanchez del Rio’s father pleaded for his son’s life but was unable to come up with the huge ransom that local government officials demanded for his release.
According to the Catholic Church’s version of the story, Sanchez del Rio insisted that no one intercede on his behalf – he was quite prepared to become a martyr.
On February 10, government troops marched the boy to the municipal cemetery in Sahuayo. As he was paraded barefoot around the town, he shouted defiantly, “Viva Cristo Rey” (Long Live Christ the King), the rallying cry of the rebel movement.
Some accounts suggest that the soldiers deliberately cut his feet and stabbed him with machetes in an effort to make him denounce his beliefs.
Other reports say a grave had already been dug by the time the platoon reached the cemetery.
Again there are differing accounts as to whether Sanchez del Rio was shot by a firing squad, stabbed to death by soldiers with bayonets, or killed by the commanding officer, who, in anger at the boy’s defiance, took out his pistol and shot him in the head.
Sanchez del Rio’s remains were exhumed in 1996 and taken to the Santiago Apóstol temple in Sahuayo, where they have remained ever since.
The Vatican later determined that the 14-year-old died because of “hatred of the faith.” He was beatified along with 11 other “martyrs” of the Cristero War in 2005.
A date for his elevation to sainthood has not been set but could be announced during Pope Francis visit to Mexico next week.