Lookit these people, just lookit! And what the hell is with “Catholics and Christians”, shows how docile they are, whoever made this obviously still isn’t willing to accept the Catholics as full Christians or vice versa. Which is also kind of odd since the Catholic church, much like the Eastern Orthodox church, considers themselves the one true Christian church, being the church founded by Paul after he was told by god to do so on Vatican hill; while the Orthodox church considers themselves the one true church descended from Jesus himself. Also, it appeals to American’s lack of any knowledge of the world we run beyond our own borders in the fact Father Vera wasn’t just shot for being a priest like it was the Soviet Union in 1935. After the Mexican revolution of 1917, the new constitution tried to enshrine a strong separation of church and state, the most contentious part being a ban on public displays of religious practices. This of course did not sit well with many in deeply Catholic Mexico at the time. So literal armed rebellion broke out, which we now call the Cristero War.
It should be of note that if any president has ever killed a religious figure, it’s the glorious communist comrade Ronald Reagan. His and other conservatives in the US enthusiastic and material support of people like Roberto D’Aubuiss in the Salvadoran civil war, along with his glorious death squads, lead to the assassination of bishop Oscar Romero(Oddly enough to bring it full circle Obama visited his memorial), and probably many lower level priests as well. People forget in the US because social issues are such a wedge, that the Catholic church, and in fact most Churches outside of some Protestant ones here are pretty god damn liberal, like literal socialists. The Catholic church and the Pope has and continues to rail against growing wealth inequality and the need for a fairer redistribution of it. The Church officially recognized the right for people to organize into unions as policy way back in the 19th century. Even here after the short lived love affair between the GOP and Catholic church over birth control mandates, Catholic theologians went to blasting Paul Ryan’s budget as robin hood for the rich since he said his Catholic faith helped inspire him in creating it. Also to the irk of many conservatives they are very pro science. Let’s not forget the Big Bang theory was conceived by a Catholic bishop. The church fully basically fully accepts evolution(which means disowning the Book of Gensis as a literal story) under the guise that God created the universe and had a guiding hand in it. The Vatican has their own observatory that releases respect cosmological papers, and the head of said observatory said not only can intelligent alien life exist, they may be free of original sin. They held a conference in 2009 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin to strengthen their science credentials. They’re a huge lobby in trying to cut carbon emissions before global warming screws us all. Heck, even in the Galileo fiasco, people forget the Vatican didn’t censor him just for suggesting the Earth went around the Sun. The church said it was a very real possibility that needed further investigation. The problem was Galileo published another book that not only said as fact the solar system was Helio centric, but had what was perceived to be a snub to the Pope in it. Now if only they could stop molesting little boys and getting involved in social issues.
Well in reality the laws about Church and State separation were in Mexico since the so called “Reform war” before the Porfiriato era, is just that this fact is often overshadowed by the French Invasion and the Empire of Maximiliano of Hasburgo.
What Calles did was more in the line of the socialist decree of religion=opium, and proceed to forcibly close Churches all along the country, and while indeed there was interest from the Catholic church, Cristeros were mostly fighting for their right of going to church, marry and baptize their children whiout having to hide from the goverment, as the law supposely allowed them to, because the law escifically declares: Freedom of cult and religion, and takes from all Priest´s the right to vote or be voted in any public place inside goverment. An yes, Calles indeed killed Priests and faithful ppl alike, one of the most famous is Father Pro, a jesuit who was calling for peace between his faithful.
After the Second Cristeros war, President Ávila Camacho, who was catholic himself, called for stoping the more strict laws on the Church without giving back Church privileges. The Vatican refused to keep relations with Mexico until Pope Juan Pablo II travel to Mexico. And the Goverment sort of erased any info about the Cristeros war from school books and if there was, it was very biased.
You can check more about the Cristeros War with the book of Jean Meyer called “La Crisitiada”.
For “greater glory” tends to oversimply things, those never are a good source of info about politically delicate themes like this.
And I agree about Cristians, Catholics and our very bad habit of fighting between ourselves and with other religions just because of politics, and to so easily forget that Jesus Crist was the first one to talk about “give the Cesar what is of the Cesar and give God what is of God”.
