The Martyrs of San Joaquin

This was during the Cristero War, when the Church was outlawed and Pope Pius XI issued Iniquis Afflictisque. ~ On the Persecution of the Church in Mexico.

From One Peter Five

By Theresa Marie Moreau

"We’ll die shouting, ‘Viva Cristo Rey!” they all agreed.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
 – Zedong Mao (1893-1976)

The train’s forged-steel wheels slowed down and screeched to a stop at Kilometer Marker 491, in the windswept, desolate Highlands of Jalisco.

In one of the railcars, six Catholic men waited their fate, on that morning, April 25, 1927, in Rancho San Joaquin, when, suddenly, a soldier called out three names: Andres Sola y Molist. José Trinidad Rangel Montano. Leonardo Perez Larios.

Forced off the train, the three were goaded down a ravine and ordered to stand in a large pool of spilled tar.

Shots rang out.

***

Andres Sola y Molist (1895-1927) – third of 11 children – was born on October 7, 1895, in the Can Vilarrasa Farmhouse, in Taradell, part of the Vic Diocese, in Spain’s province of Barcelona.

Andres Sola y Molist

Days after his birth, his father and mother – Buenaventura Sola Comas and Antonia Molist Benet – relocated the growing family to a rented patch of land, El Clard, in Sentforas, where his parents – illiterate peasants from Catalonia – farmed.

Even in his youth, Sola gravitated toward the priesthood. When his father took him along to look at a house that he was thinking of leasing in Alpens, the young teenager shared that his own destiny was not in farming the land, but in guiding a flock.

“How do you like the house?” his father asked.

“I like it very much, but my vocation is that of a missionary,” he replied, very certain of his destiny and the fulfillment of that destiny. And as he matured, the whisper in his heart grew louder, especially after he and his brother Santiago heard the preaching of a Claretian missionary.

In 1908, Santiago was the first to enter the minor seminary for the Claretian missionary order, known officially as the Congregation of Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, founded by Father Antonio Maria Claret y Clara (1807-70), in the Vic Diocese seminary, on July 16, 1849.

Andres Sola joined the minor seminary the following year, in 1909, completed his postulancy in Vic and was welcomed into the novitiate on November 14, 1913, in Cervera, in the province of Lerida. The next year, he made his first, temporary religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience on August 15, 1914, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He received his clerical tonsure on July 18, 1915. Two years later, on August 15, 1917, he made the profession of his final, perpetual vows and continued to study philosophy and theology, preparing for the Sacrament of Holy Orders. His hands were anointed with sacred oil for the sacred duty on September 23, 1922, in the chapel of the Episcopal Palace of Segovia.

A very complex individual, Andres Sola had a serious-yet-sensitive temperament, a harsh-yet-charitable disposition. Although he could be a bit argumentative, he also tried to please those around him. And throughout his life, in risky situations, he proved to be fearless, knowingly exposing himself to danger.

On July 1, 1923, he received his pastoral mission: Mexico. He and five Claretian confreres began their journey, setting sail from the Iberian Peninsula, on July 25. They docked in Veracruz on August 20, and then arrived in Mexico City on August 28. The next day, he visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, at the foot of the Hill of Tepeyac, and placed his priestly ministry under her aegis.

First assignment: a professorship at the Claretian Minor Seminary, in Toluca, in the state of Mexico. By Christmas 1924, he transferred to Leon, Guanajuato, where he freely served his parishioners, despite the regime’s restrictions on all clergy and the ban of foreign priests, decreed in Article 130 – of the 1917 Political Constitution of the United Mexican States – that ordered, in part, “To exercise the ministry of any cult in Mexico, one needs to be Mexican by birth.”

Initially, the Constitution’s five anti-Catholic articles – 3, 5, 24, 27 and 130 – had not been fully enforced since ratification. However, in 1920, the powers of government shifted when control was grabbed by the Sonoran Triumvirate, consisting of three Revolutionary generals: Plutarco Elias Calles (born Francisco Plutarco Elias Campuzano (1877-1945), Alvaro Obregon Salido (1880-1928) and Felipe Adolfo de la Huerta Marcor (1881-1955). It was after this transfer of authority that the anti-Catholic laws began to be increasingly, forcefully imposed, especially after the ascendency of Calles to the presidency of Mexico (December 1, 1924 to November 30, 1928).

Like Spain in the 19th century, Catholics in 20th century Mexico endured the threat of physical violence, the enforcement of anti-clerical laws, severe restrictions on religious and personal freedoms, closure of seminaries and religious houses, seizure of Church property and expropriation of private property belonging to the faithful.

The attacks by Revolutionaries in Mexico greatly affected the Church, clergy and parishioners.

On March 26, 1925, Calles sent a telegram to all state governments, ordering the strict application of Article 130. Many foreign priests were arrested and expelled. Others escaped by going underground, living wherever they could find shelter, whether in a cave, in a shed, or in the house of a kind parishioner.

Eventually, in February 1926, Sola found refuge, in Leon, with devout Catholics, Josefina and Jovita Alba. The spacious house had room enough for an oratory, a private chapel where priests heard Confessions and celebrated the Liturgies of the Word and the Eucharist.

While there, Sola continued to offer the Catholic Sacraments. With the number of priests plummeting, his days consisted of an intense mission with a strict schedule: Rise early. Offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Distribute the Eucharist in private homes. Visit housebound parishioners and cloistered nuns requesting Holy Communion. Then at 10 a.m., administer the Sacraments of Penance, Baptism and Matrimony, wherever, however, whenever needed.

But then, persecution accelerated on June 14, 1926, after Calles signed the rather lengthy and inclusive Law for Reforming the Penal Code, which targeted and restricted the Church and her faithful in every possible way, even making it illegal for priests and religious to wear clerical garb. Article 18 specified:

Outside the temples, neither the ministers of the cults, nor the individuals of either sex who profess them, may not wear special costumes or insignia that characterize them, under the government penalty of five hundred pesos or arrest not exceeding fifteen days.

In response to the legislation commonly known as the Calles Law, the Mexican episcopate announced in their Pastoral Letter, of July 25, 1926, that, after midnight, on July 31, all clergy would withdraw from the churches; otherwise, they would be colluding with the State against the Church. The churches would remain open, if possible, but only under the direction and care of the laity.

Life became even more difficult for Sola in March 1927, when the regime issued an expulsion order against him. One of his superiors instructed that he flee Leon and seek safety in Mexico City, where he could continue his missionary work. He did obey. He did leave. But after several days in the nation’s capital, he requested that he be able to return to his parishioners. His provincial superior granted permission, but also issued a warning: Be cautious.

Fully understanding all the dangers that he faced, and fully accepting all the possible consequences, Sola returned to Leon around April 10, 1927, the beginning of Holy Week. While ministering in the home of Josefina Leal, he was advised to go into hiding because of the potential risks.

“I will not hide! If they kidnap me, let them kidnap me! If they want to shoot me, let them shoot me!” he declared.

Not long after, on April 23, Sola’s immediate local superior, Father Fernando Santesteban Urra (?-1960) sent him a letter with a dire caution: There is a warrant for your arrest. Suspend ministerial duties. Flee. Go into hiding by changing residences.

“I’m so scared!” Sola joked upon reading the letter, laughing and tucking it away in his pocket. “Nothing will happen to me,” he added, reasoning that he had faced danger before and nothing had happened to him then.

However, that same day, he learned about the arrest of another priest, someone who had also found refuge in the Alba home.

***

A native of Mexico, José Trinidad Rangel Montano (1887-1927) was born June 4, 1887, on Rancho el Durazno, in the outskirts of Guanajuato’s city of Dolores Hidalgo. He was the third of thirteen blessings to José Eduvigis Rangel and Maria Higinia Montano, devout Catholics who imprinted their faith, life of simplicity and Christian asceticism upon their children.

José Trinidad Rangel Montano

Humble, shy and dedicated to God even at an early age, when he was 14, he shared his vocation with his parents, who regretted that they could not financially support him in his calling. But six years later, in 1907, his father humbled himself before the Bishop of Leon, Leopoldo Ruiz y Flores (1865-1941), and begged him to accept his son into the seminary, as a charity case.

Although not received because of a lack of scholarly preparation, he was welcomed to first enroll in the College of the Divine Savior in San Francisco del Rincon, where he focused on a college-preparatory curriculum to strengthen his intellectual skills necessary for the advanced academics that he would face in the seminary.

After a period of intense study, he was finally admitted, in 1909, to attend, for free, the Diocesan Seminary of Leon, where he received his clerical tonsure, on March 7, 1913. But then, in 1914, the Constitutionalist Army headed by First Chief José Venustiano Carranza de la Garza (1859-1920) seized and occupied the seminary, suspending classes and expelling students.

Back home, when Rangel’s mother saw him standing outside the house in his cassock, she begged him to go inside, fearing that anti-Catholic Carrancista soldiers would kill him, because he was wearing his clerical robe, the symbol of detachment from the world and dedication to the religious life.

“I am sure they won’t do anything to me. But if it’s God’s Will for me to die, even if I am not a priest, then I shall die,” he told his mother.

Banished from his seminary, he traveled north of the border, to San Antonio, Texas, where he was able to continue his studies. After one year, he returned home to join the re-opened diocesan seminary in Leon. Under the tutelage of the Bishop of Leon, Emeterio Valverde y Tellez (1864-1948), a noted academic, philosopher and historian, Rangel was ordained a deacon and, shortly thereafter, a priest, on Palm Sunday, April 13, 1919. One week later, he celebrated his first High Mass in his home parish of Dolores Hidalgo, on Easter Sunday, April 20.

Blessed with a true priestly vocation, he had always been serious, humble, pious, chaste, and his virtues increased with age. But he had one fault: He was plagued by scrupulosity. His obsession and compulsion to frequently confess his sins, preferably each day, led to a particular torment whenever he found himself stationed in a parish as a lone priest.

In 1926, after an order of religious nuns was expelled from their convent, Rangel was appointed rector, to look after their church in Silao. The nuns belonged to the Order of Discalced Carmelites – founded in 1562 by Teresa of Avila (born Teresa Sanchez de Cepeda Davila y Ahumada, 1515-82), in Avila, Spain.

While he served there, the Socialist regime grew more repressive and began ordering all priests to register with government authorities, who planned to wield control over every aspect of the lives of the clergy. Rangel refused to sign up at Silao’s City Hall.

And then he received a letter from Bishop of Leon, Emeterio Valverde y Tellez (1864-1948), with these words: “Potius Latere,” which roughly translates to, “Preferably hide.”

Rangel fled Silao on February 7, 1927, on foot and walked the whole twenty-five miles to Leon, where he received refuge with the Albas, former benefactors. In their home, he found a sanctuary of prayer and study with a fellow priest: Andres Sola. The two formed a solid friendship.

A couple months later, in April, Rangel’s younger brother by 20 years, Agustin Rangel Montano, insisted that he flee the impending threat from the anti-Catholic government and escape to the United States of America. He would even give him the necessary funds, with money that he had earned from a wheat harvest.

“I’m not going to the United States. I want to do my duty,” he responded.

And then he received a simple request.

In San Francisco del Rincon, a convent of nuns had no priest and asked the diocesan vicar general to send them someone to conduct Holy Week services. The nuns belonged to the Order of Minims, a mendicant order formed in 1435 by Francis of Paolo, also known as Francis the Fire Handler (1416-1507).

Other priests had also been asked, but were too afraid to go. Rangel immediately accepted the request of the Minims.

“If it’s for the Blessed Sacrament, I’m coming!” he assured them and arrived by April 11, Monday of Holy Week. Easter Sunday fell on April 17 that year.

While in town, he stayed in the home of Maria Muñoz, who warned him to hide his status as a man of the cloth, especially since, figuratively, “being a priest is written on your forehead.”

“Look, Miss, this cannot be done when the hour of martyrdom arrives, because I want to be with Our Lord, and it’s my turn at the moment.”

But then, on Friday of the Octave of Easter, April 22, around two in the afternoon, federal soldiers from Leon arrived in San Francisco del Rincon and immediately barged into the Muñoz residence, where they expected to find a cache of weapons belonging to Cristero soldiers.

They conducted a search and found, instead, a priest: Rangel.

“Is this a priest, or not?” they asked Muñoz.

“No, I assure you he is not.”

“But he has the sign on his forehead,” they argued, eerily echoing how she had described him.

They asked Rangel: “Tell us, are you a priest or not?”

“I’m a business apprentice,” he answered, with mental reservation.

Not believing either of them, soldiers immediately arrested and loaded him into a military truck filled with soldiers and transported him to his former seminary in Leon, converted into the local Military Headquarters, which had become a command post and prison.

“Yes, I am a priest. My name is Trinidad Rangel, and I have held all these ministerial positions,” he confessed to his captors.

Presented to Brigadier General Daniel Sanchez, who raged at him, the priest remained silent and humble.

Word of his apprehension soon spread: “In San Francisco del Rincon, Father Rangel has been kidnapped and detained!”

The next day, when Sola learned of Rangel’s arrest, he immediately organized a Holy Hour at the Alba home, for the following morning, Sunday, April 24, from 10:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m., when the faithful would pray for the release of his fellow priest.

After the Holy Hour, Sola was approached by two widows – Maria Encarnacion Esquivel and Maria Refugio Martin. They had a heartfelt request.

“Do you think it would be appropriate for us to go to the Military Headquarters to ask for Father Rangel’s freedom?” they asked him.

“Fine. And don’t waste any time. But first, go visit the Blessed Sacrament, and pray for light and strength,” he advised.

After visiting the chapel for prayer and reflection, they left for the federal headquarters to meet with Sanchez. A brutal Revolutionary, he had been appointed to the position of military commander in Leon by General Joaquin Amaro Dominguez (1889-1952), the secretary of war and navy who sought revenge against the Leonese, after they publicly snubbed and humiliated him during his visit to the city in February 1927.

When the widows met with Sanchez, he grew enraged and bellowed, “Get out of here! Now! You are two pious women who have come to beg for the priest!”

Distraught, they fled and hurried back to the Alba home to share with Sola what had happened. However, little did they know that Sanchez had dispatched soldiers to follow them and conduct a search for priests.

***

It was around noon, when the two widows returned to the Alba home, and before they were able to shut the door, the soldiers forced their way in behind them and placed the women in the oratory, where Leonardo Perez Larios (1883-1927) was offering his prayers.

Leonardo Perez Larios

“And you, who are you?” asked the soldiers, who suspected Perez of being a priest, because he was dressed in black.

“My name is Leonardo Perez, and I’m a commercial agent.”

“Not possible, with that face of a priest,” they remarked.

“I am not a priest, but I am Catholic, Apostolic and Roman,” he answered.

A frequent visitor to the chapel, often serving as sacristan, Perez was a holy man who lived an enthusiastic spiritual life beyond the ordinary. Born on November 28, 1883, in Lagos de Moreno, he was the third of eleven children, to parents Isaac Perez and Tecla Larios. When he was three years old, the household relocated to Encarnacion Diaz. But when his father died, on August 8, 1907, the family fell upon hard financial times and moved to Leon, where Perez eventually found work as a clerk in La Primavera, a retail clothing store. At one point, he wanted to marry, but the parents of his intended did not give their permission. For a time, he dreamed about a religious life of prayer in a monastery, but he could not, as he financially supported not only his younger siblings but also some nuns in a few of the clandestine convents around the city.

In the Alba home, soldiers searched Perez, confiscated his rosary and then ordered him, the two widows and all others present, to sit in the living room, as the search of the entire premises began. The ransackers destroyed all religious symbols and stole everything of value, including: chalices, plates, linen cloths, missals and more than 3,000 dollars in cash that Sola had been collecting to distribute to the underground priests.

Initially, the soldiers passed by Sola, thinking he was not a priest, as they continued looking throughout the house, including Sola’s private room, where they found a photograph of him in priestly vestments administering First Communion to a little girl.

After finding the image, they questioned him.

He did not deny being a priest and was subsequently arrested.

Perez, Sola and the two widows were taken into custody and transported by car to the same Military Headquarters where Rangel had been locked up. Also arrested at the Alba house and transported later in the day: Leodegario Marin, Salvador Onate and José Santiago Romo.

With an intense hatred for priests, Sanchez immediately began plotting the demise of Sola, Rangel and Perez.

First, he contacted his immediate supervisor, General Jose Amarillas Valenzuela (1878-1959), and falsely informed him of the apprehension of three men responsible for the recent derailment of the train carrying Amarillas. Run off the rails in the early morning hours of April 24, near Kilometer Marker 492, the engine sprawled across the tracks, turning over its tank cars, spilling tar that gushed freely and flowed abundantly into a nearby hollow.

Then Sanchez sent Amaro, the secretary of war and navy, a telegram: “I have surprised three friars plotting against established authorities, also three onlookers, as a result of yesterday’s derailment plot. If they committed a crime against the State in conjunction with the Cristeros, they could be executed.”

He requested instructions on how to handle the matter.

The response, rapid: “Shoot the friars at the scene as a warning. Onlookers, set them free.”

Sanchez forwarded the communication to Amarillas, who set to work executing the order.

Around 6 that evening, Sola and Perez – locked up in the chapel – were eating bread given to them by the widows, who had received food from their families.

Sanchez walked in jauntily, in a great mood and derided his prisoners, “Eat, eat. Enjoy your meal!”

Sola stood and asked, “Would you like some?”

“I’m not asking for anything! You are vile, arrogant. I detest you. I hate you, the ones who rob trains. Greedy. You are very humble now, but when you derailed the train, what didn’t you do? You killed the elderly, you dishonored young people, you stole,” he ranted, grabbing the priests by their hair, bending them over and mocking, “Don’t you see their horns and tails?”

None of them had anything to do with the train derailment.

Sola calmly, humbly sat, bowed his head and resumed eating his bread and generously fed a few pieces to Sanchez’s dog.

“Take your hand away! You’re not worthy of offering anything to my dog,” Sanchez ordered, cruelly adding, “Stranger, why didn’t you leave Mexico? You’ll see how I’m going to send you away, in a little barrel, so you can go very comfortably.”

The prisoners remained quiet.

“I’m going to shoot you for being idiots, for being fanatics, to send a warning. Get ready, you spoiled show-offs, because I’m going to kill you.”

***

Orders from headquarters: “The prisoners must be taken to the very site of the derailment and executed there.”

It was just after eight that Sunday night, April 24, when Rangel, Sola, Perez and the three other Catholic men – Marin, Onate and Romo – were transported, via garbage truck to the Leon train station. There they boarded the Number 7, Mexico City-Juarez train.

What should have been a relatively short trip turned into a marathon of starts and stops and layovers, because the repairs to the damaged tracks had not yet been completed. But the extra hours gave the condemned Catholics time to confess and to discuss the immediate future.

“If they’re going to kill us, we’ll die shouting, ‘Viva Cristo Rey!” they all agreed.

Along the way, as the train was about to arrive at the Santa Maria station, Perez inquired about the venerated statue in the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos. Only fifteen inches tall, the religious figure was more than five hundred years old and made of sugar cane paste.

“If they release us here, shall we go visit Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos?” Perez asked.

“Yes,” someone replied.

But when they arrived at the Santa Maria station, they were not released, and they did not visit Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos.

When the train headed for Encarnacion de Diaz, Perez wondered aloud about the “Lord of Mercy” mural of Christ crucified, created by Pablo Contreras, in 1833, on display in the Shrine of the Lord of Mercy, in Tepatitlan de Morelos.

“If they release us there, shall we go visit our ‘Lord of Mercy?’” he asked.

“Yes,” someone answered.

But they were not released, and they did not visit “Lord of Mercy.”

Eventually, the train neared Kilometer Marker 491, in the land belonging to Rancho San Joaquin, near Lagos de Moreno. Amarillas – who had boarded the train along the way with Sanchez to witness the executions – ordered the train to stop.

Federal Officer Silva disembarked, flanked by ten soldiers, and they all walked over to the prisoners’ railcar and called out three names. Sola and Perez stepped forward.

“One is missing,” Silva noted, signaling his men to roust Rangel off the train.

Romo, one of the three arrestees ordered to remain behind, watched his fellow Catholics escorted diagonally away from the railcar. He noticed that Perez gave him a sign – which he didn’t understand – and then smiled, as he continued on his forced march.

Descending down the ravine, Sola handed his watch to one of the soldiers, with this request: “Take it, so you remember the time you shot me.”

About two hundred feet from the train, the group stopped, and Silva ordered the Catholics to step into the pool of tar that had spilled from the general’s derailed train. A signal given. The soldiers quickly lined up, raised their weapons, aimed and abruptly shot the three prisoners. In their backs.

It was 9:05 in the morning of Monday, April 25, 1927. All was done so quickly, no one had time to cheer, “Viva Cristo Rey!”

Perez died instantly.

Rangel spun around from the impact, lifting his hand to his face, collapsed into the pool of tar and died.

Sola survived the initial bullets and splashed into the sticky, smelly black goo.

All three received another shot, a tiro de gracia, but Sola’s bullet just grazed his skull. He lingered.

The whole ordeal, from start to finish, had taken only a matter of six, maybe seven minutes. The federals needed to be swift, because they were in Cristero country.

Returning to the train, one of the shooters called to Vidal Barrera, the railroad supervisor overseeing the repair work, “If no one comes to collect those bodies, dig a hole and bury them.”

After the railcars rolled away, Barrera heard a voice.

“Go see who’s talking,” he ordered one of his repairmen.

Petronilo Flores followed the sound and found the three men, all shot, two dead, one still alive.

“What are you going to do with me?” Sola asked, attempting to get up, but he could not.

“Nothing, sir,” Flores answered.

“Do you see those two dead men next to me? One is a priest from Silao, from the Parish of the Lord of Forgiveness, and I am a Spanish priest from Leon. We are two priests. We die for Jesus. We die for God.”

Flores left.

Another worker walked over to Sola.

“Can you give me a little water?” the priest requested.

The worker gave Sola some water in a rough dish.

“Please, take me out of the sun,” the priest begged, and the worker pulled Sola from the tar pit and dragged him into the shade of a nearby tree. He then returned to work.

Another, Francisco Reyes, checked on the priest.

“What are you going to do to me?” Sola asked.

“I am a railway worker. I am not going to do anything to you,” Reyes answered, remaining with the priest, who prayed, “My Jesus, my Jesus, I am dying for you.”

“They’re killing me,” he told Reyes, “because they turned me in as a priest. I am Spanish. One of my companions is a priest. His name is Trinidad Rangel. The other is not a priest and is called Leonardo Perez.”

Sola looked up and requested, “I am very thirsty. Please, some water.”

“There isn’t any,” Reyes explained, but left to find some. By the time he rushed back with water, around noon, Sola had already died.

After lunch, seven of the rail workers dug three shallow graves and buried the Martyrs of San Joaquin, in the windswept, desolate Highlands of Jalisco

Miscellanea and facts were pulled from the following:

“Fr. Jose Trinidad Rangel Montano (1887-1927),” by the Vatican.va.

“Martires de San Joaquin,” by Fidel Gonzalez Fernandez.

“Misionero y Martir: El Beato Padre Andres Sola, Claretiano, y sus Companeros Martires en Mexico,” by Pedro Garcia.