A Complete History of the Cristero War

Miss Moreau reviews a new book on the Cristero War, when the Left-wing Mexican government tried to outlaw the Church and Catholics fought back.

From One Peter Five

By Theresa Marie Moreau

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.
– General Ferdinand Jean Marie Foch (1851-1929), Supreme Allied Commander on the Western Front during World War I

During a trip to Mexico in 1997, Javier Pablo Olivera Ravasi excitedly chatted with Catholics about the Cristero War that had raged through the heart of their country from 1926 to 1929.

Only one problem: No one knew what he was talking about.

Because of that unfortunate lack of knowledge about their very own history, Ravasi felt inspired to write about the Cristiada, that great period of Catholic heroism, which he wanted to share not only with Mexico, but with the world.

And he has.

Ordained in 2008, Ravasi received his doctorate in history from Argentina’s National University of Cuyo, when he presented his doctoral thesis on the Cristero War in 2013. That dissertation expanded into La Contrarrevolucion cristera: Dos cosmovisiones en pugna, a nonfiction book, first published in Spanish in 2016.

And now, that work has been translated into English: The Cristero Counterrevolution and the Battle for the Soul of Mexico, published by Os Justi Press in 2025.

This comprehensive book centers around that bloody and brutal internecine war that erupted when courageous Catholics dared to defend their faith, at times to martyrdom, after the anti-Catholic, criminal caudillos passed legislation to control all aspects of religious life in Mexico, in an attempt to slowly strangle the Catholic Church to death. The Law Reforming the Penal Code, commonly referred to as Calles Law, was signed by then-President Plutarco Elias Calles (1877-1945), on June 14, 1926, with the intention of enforcing the strict anti-clerical, anti-Catholic provisions of the 1917 Political Constitution of the United Mexican States.

In response, Catholic bishops in Mexico ordered their priests to withdraw from churches and suspend public worship on July 31, 1926, the day that Calles Law was to go into effect and when all Church properties were to be nationalized, stolen by the State, because the Church would then be prohibited – by law – from holding real estate.

When administrators for the Revolutionary regime turned churches, rectories and seminaries into barracks, barrooms and brothels, the brave and emboldened faithful reacted spontaneously, sparking a Counterrevolution against the Atheistic Socialist State. Men, women and children fought, often with bare hands, to protect the buildings and institutions that they had built and cared for with those very same hands.

The battle for the soul of Mexico had, unofficially, begun.

Well-researched and well-written, the pages are filled with details about the three-year civil war, from beginning to end: sociopathic blood lust and innocent lives lost, strategic planning and horrific battles, intrigue and betrayals, arrests and executions, showcasing selfless Catholics who gave their everything for religious freedom, always under the banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe and always with cheers of Viva Cristo Rey!

Reflecting upon the historical significance of the Cristeros, Ravasi wrote:

The Cristiada provides material for archetypes, heroic figures, and even holy souls. Why not praise them? Why not publish them if they are also part of the story of the period? The cry ‘for God and for the Fatherland’ summed up well the forma mentis of these medieval knights resurrected in Mexico and fighting the same ideals.

This complete history of the Cristiada, in a single, 298-page volume, is recommended to all.

***

At the age of 19, Ravasi – who was born in Argentina, in 1977 – experienced a spiritual awakening after reconnecting with Trinidad Maria Guiomar Sequeiros, a young woman his age, whom he had known when they were both children in the same social circle.

They soon started dating, and as they fell in love, she drew him into the Church, quite unexpectedly.

When both were 21 years old, they celebrated a Betrothal Ceremony before a priest and planned to marry after both graduated from law school. But through a special grace of Divine Providence, they heard the persistent whisper of God in their hearts, a divine calling to a life of purpose, to a life of service. So, after nearly six beautiful years together, including a discernment period of two years, they decided to cancel their previous plans for marriage and prepare for their future lives consecrated to Christ.

Following Sequeiros’s graduation as a lawyer from the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences of the National University at La Plata, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Merciful Jesus, in Saint Laurent Parish, in southern France’s Diocese of Frejus-Toulon, in 2002. As Sister Marie de la Sagesse, she embraced her life as a Bride of Christ and made her final vows in 2008.

After graduating as a lawyer from the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Law, Ravasi entered the seminary in Argentina in 2002. Upon finishing his religious formation, he transferred to Europe, where he earned a doctorate in philosophy from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome in 2007. The following year, he received the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

Well-known for celebrating and promoting the Traditional Latin Mass, the Mass of the Ages, Ravasi co-founded the Order of Saint of Elias, El Orden de San Elias in 2015 with Father Federico Juan Highton, also born in Argentina in 1980.

The religious missionary order is described as devoted to serve “the most remote and spiritually underserved areas of the world.” In that regard, Ravasi is currently assigned to Star of the Sea Catholic Church, in San Francisco, California.

The Order’s motto: “Through my God, I shall go over a wall.”

¡Viva Cristo Rey!

Pictured: Bld Miguel Pro, executed by the Red Mexican government for exercising his priestly ministry.