- The blood of the laity, a forgotten foundation of the Mexican Church
- A persecution that initially targeted ordinary believers
- Multiple vocations united in a single testimony
- A jubilee year that shifts the focus towards ordinary loyalty
- The number fifteen thousand as a sign of the times
- The Archdiocese of Durango is building a sanctuary so as not to forget
- A moment of self-reflection rather than a triumphant celebration
- Lectio divina
- ✝ Biblical references
Exactly one hundred years ago, on August 15, 1926, on a dusty road leading to Puerto de Santa Teresa, near Chalchihuites in the Mexican state of Zacatecas, four men walked to their execution without having been tried. A priest, a father, and two young men barely out of their teens. This past August 15, exactly one hundred years later, some fifteen thousand faithful gathered on these same lands, now designated "holy sites," alongside Archbishop Joseph Spiteri, Apostolic Nuncio and representative of Pope Leo XIV in Mexico, to conclude a jubilee year dedicated to their memory. This considerable number for a local pilgrimage dedicated not to a single martyr but to four figures relatively unknown outside Mexico speaks volumes about the spiritual state of a country that, a century after seeing its churches closed by decree, is rediscovering the magnitude of what it endured and what it learned from it.
What is striking about this commemoration in August 2026 is not just the size of the crowd, but the nature of the group being honored. Saint Luis Bátis Sáinz, a priest; Saint Manuel Morales, a family man; Saint Salvador Lara Puente; and Saint David Roldán Lara, two young lay members of the Mexican Catholic Youth Association (ACJM). None of them were bishops, none held any prominent ecclesiastical office. Three were simply laypeople, two of them barely out of their teens—David Roldán was only nineteen when he was shot without trial on August 15, 1926, in Puerto de Santa Teresa. This centrality given to the laity, in a commemoration which closes an entire jubilee year, deserves to be considered with the gravity it calls for, because it reveals a theology of martyrdom which has never been limited to the clergy and which, a hundred years later, finds a particularly current resonance.
The blood of the laity, a forgotten foundation of the Mexican Church
A persecution that initially targeted ordinary believers
The historical context deserves to be recalled precisely, not for the sake of erudition, but because it directly illuminates the meaning of the current commemoration. On July 31, 1926, in strict application of Article 130 of the 1917 Mexican Constitution and what became known as the Calles Law, named after President Plutarco Elías Calles, all public worship requiring the presence of a priest was suspended throughout Mexico. The bishops, in consultation with Pope Pius XI, had themselves decided on this suspension of the sacraments as a sign of passive resistance rather than submit to a civil registration of the clergy, which they considered an infringement on religious freedom. The Cristiade erupted a few days later, on August 3, 1926, a spontaneous popular uprising that would last three years and claim the lives of, according to estimates by the Mexican Episcopal Conference itself, more than two hundred thousand people.
Yet, within this mass of victims, the overwhelming majority were not clergy but laypeople: peasants, laborers, young people involved in Catholic associations, mothers, and catechists. The pastoral message published on July 31, 2026, by the Mexican Episcopal Conference, on the exact centenary of the Calles Law's implementation, reiterated this point unequivocally, acknowledging that "the Church has not always been able to serve the Truth" during this turbulent period. This remarkably frank text invites introspection rather than mere triumphal celebration. It is precisely in this spirit that the commemoration of Chalchihuites takes place: it honors four figures, three of whom were laypeople, reminding us that holiness has never resided exclusively in the sanctuary but is equally found in marketplaces, workshops, and homes.
The apostle Peter already affirmed this with a force that is rediscovered in the light of these events: «You yourselves, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ» (1 Peter 2:5). This common priesthood of the faithful, which the Second Vatican Council would develop much later in its theology of the People of God, finds a harrowing prefiguration in the blood of the lay Cristeros. Manuel Morales, a family man and not a clergyman, exhorted his fellow members of the Catholic Youth Movement (CYM) at a gathering held on July 29, 1926, in Chalchihuites, to peacefully defend their freedom of conscience—just days before being arrested and shot without trial.
Multiple vocations united in a single testimony
What makes the group of the four martyrs of Chalchihuites theologically remarkable is precisely the diversity of their states of life, united in a single fidelity unto death. The Roman necrology, in its liturgical formula chosen for their shared feast day of May 21, describes them thus: «the holy martyrs Louis Batis Sainz, priest, Emmanuel Morales, father of a family, Savior Lara Puente, and David Roldan Lara, shot by soldiers in hatred of the Christian name during the persecution in this country.» This liturgical formula, by associating in the same sentence the priest and the father of a family, the two young laymen, expresses the essential point: before death received in odium fidei, their states of life fade before the single baptismal vocation.
The account of their arrest, as it has come down to us, adds a harrowing dimension to this unity. Arrested the day before while speaking at a public meeting in defense of religious freedom, Father Bátis was led out of prison with his three lay companions, under the pretext of being transferred to the state capital for trial. David Roldán and his cousin Salvador Lara were forced to witness the execution of the priest and Manuel Morales before being shot themselves. This gradation of suffering, where the youngest were forced to contemplate the death of their elders before suffering their own, evokes with particular force the words of the Book of Wisdom concerning the persecuted righteous man: «He became a rebuke to their thoughts; only his sight weighed on them, for his way of life was not like that of others» (Wis 2:14-15). The biblical text, written centuries before the Cristiade, seems to describe in advance the very logic of the Mexican persecution: a power that cannot tolerate the mere existence of witnesses whose lives contradict its totalitarian project.
Pope John Paul II canonized this group of four martyrs, along with twenty-one other companions including Saint Cristóbal Magallanes Jara, on May 21, 2000 in Rome, after having beatified them on November 22, 1992. This process, initiated more than sixty years after the events, illustrates the necessary slowness of ecclesiastical discernment in matters of martyrdom, but also the constancy of Mexican popular memory which never allowed the memory of these figures to fade, long before Rome officially consecrated their cult.
A jubilee year that shifts the focus towards ordinary loyalty
The number fifteen thousand as a sign of the times
The number of faithful gathered on August 15, 2026—approximately fifteen thousand people—deserves to be considered within the context of the series of major commemorations that have marked this centennial jubilee year. On January 31, 2026, a national youth pilgrimage, according to estimates by the authorities of the state of Guanajuato, brought together between sixty and seventy thousand young people at the summit of Cerro del Cubilete, in front of the Christ the King monument, far exceeding the forty-five thousand participants initially expected. That same year, several academic and ecclesiastical conferences were held in Mexico to explore the historical and spiritual significance of the Cristiade, while the Knights of Columbus, of which several of the canonized martyrs were members, inaugurated the centennial celebrations on July 5, 2026, with a pilgrimage to the monumental shrine in Guadalajara dedicated to the Mexican martyrs of Christ the King.
What distinguishes the August 15th commemoration in Chalchihuites is not its absolute size—smaller than that of the January youth pilgrimage—but its symbolic function as a closing event. It marked the end of the Jubilee Year, opened to honor these four specific martyrs, in a place that has borne, for a century, the eloquent name of "Lugares Santos," the Holy Places, a site located four kilometers from Chalchihuites where, five months later, a fifth martyr, Saint Mateo Correa Magallanes, was also executed. The choice to conclude precisely where "it all began," as the local expression goes, gives this liturgy a significance that transcends the regional context: it closes a cycle of remembrance by leading the assembly of the faithful back to the geographical and spiritual source of the Cristero persecution.
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The Archdiocese of Durango is building a sanctuary so as not to forget
A concrete development accompanies this commemorative momentum: the Archdiocese of Durango, to which the four martyrs of Chalchihuites canonically belonged at the time of their deaths, has undertaken the construction of a new sanctuary dedicated to their veneration, as well as to that of Saint Mateo Correa Magallanes, thus bringing together the five so-called "Durango martyrs" in a single permanent place of worship. This architectural initiative, which is a direct continuation of the Jubilee Year, reflects a clear intention: not to let the commemorative fervor dissipate once the anniversary has passed, but to anchor it permanently in the sacred geography of the country.
This approach resonates with a profound biblical intuition: that memory is an act of fidelity, not simply an archiving of the past. The Book of Deuteronomy emphasizes this duty of active transmission: «Be careful, and keep your soul well, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. You shall make them known to your children and to your children’s children» (Deut 4:9). By building a stone sanctuary where the martyrs fell, the Church of Durango transforms an oral and liturgical memory into a tangible place that future generations can visit, touch, and inhabit through prayer. This is precisely the gesture this verse calls for: not to be content with inward remembrance, but to inscribe memory in space and transmit it materially.
A moment of self-reflection rather than a triumphant celebration
What fundamentally distinguishes this 2026 commemoration from the more discreet tributes paid until then is the tone adopted by the Mexican episcopate itself. At the conclusion of the 119th plenary assembly of the Mexican Episcopal Conference, held from November 10 to 14, 2025, the bishops published a pastoral message that explicitly rejects any complacent nostalgia. They write that "the centenary should not be a time for nostalgia, but for an examination of conscience: are we defending the faith with the same radicalism?" This statement, repeated and expanded upon in the message of July 31, 2026, marking the exact centenary of the Calles Law, emphasizes that the Church itself has not always lived up to the truth it proclaimed during this period.
This self-criticism, rare in the commemorative genre, gives the August 15th celebration in Chalchihuites a depth that transcends mere patriotic or religious homage. Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, Archbishop of Mexico City, also revealed during a meeting at the Vatican on January 14, 2026, that he had extended an invitation to Pope Leo XIV to visit Mexico in the near future, a sign that this Jubilee Year could have a direct papal extension, thus giving additional global resonance to a memory that has hitherto been largely confined to Mexican territory.
The Epistle to the Hebrews offers valuable insight into the spiritual function that such a commemoration of martyrs must fulfill, far removed from any complacency: «Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us» (Hebrews 12:1). The text does not say that the cloud of witnesses should be contemplated with detached pride; it says that it should provoke a race, a stripping away, a renewed commitment. This is precisely what the Mexican bishops are calling for when they ask whether Catholics today defend their faith «with the same radicalism» as Luis Bátis, Manuel Morales, Salvador Lara Puente, and David Roldán Lara.
Father Raymond J. de Souza, commenting on this Cristero rebellion in a reflection published in early August 2026, emphasized that it «constitutes a sobering warning today,» recalling that the Mexican persecution of the 1920s was not an isolated historical event but the expression of a deliberate political project aimed at claiming absolute sovereignty over consciences. This contemporary interpretation, far from being anecdotal, aligns perfectly with the episcopal message: it is not a matter of commemorating a closed past, but of discerning to what extent the same temptations of state control over religious freedom could resurface in new forms elsewhere in the contemporary world.
This way of rereading the past in the light of the present finds further resonance in the words addressed by Saint Paul to the Romans, when he speaks of the steadfastness of Christian hope in the very heart of trial: «Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?» (Romans 8:35). This passage, less frequently quoted than other Pauline verses on charity, resonates with particular force when one considers these four men led without trial to their execution, a century before fifteen thousand of their compatriots would come, on this same land, to sing of their rediscovered faithfulness.
Finally, it should be noted that this commemorative dynamic is not limited to Mexican territory. The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization of which several Cristero martyrs were active members, adopted an official resolution at their 2026 Supreme Convention commemorating the centenary of the Cristero War, recalling their historical financial support for the construction of the monumental Shrine of Christ the King, dedicated to the Mexican Martyrs, in the Archdiocese of Guadalajara. This international dimension of Cristero memory, championed by a global lay organization, confirms that the blood shed at Chalchihuites in 1926 continues, a century later, to nourish an ecclesial consciousness that extends far beyond Mexican borders and finds, in the figure of these four ordinary witnesses who became saints, a model of fidelity offered to the entire universal Church.
Lectio divina
«You yourselves, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood.» 1 Peter 2:5
You look at this crowd of fifteen thousand people gathered on land still marked by the blood spilled a hundred years ago. You, who have never had to choose between your faith and your life, what in your most ordinary daily life already demands this same quiet radicalism? Manuel Morales was neither a priest nor a religious, simply a family man who spoke out one day too many for the freedom to believe. What would you keep silent about, for fear of being seen differently?.
Lord, you made living stones of your building from four ordinary men. You received their blood on a dusty road in Zacatecas, without trial, without witnesses but yourself. Teach me the silent faithfulness of Manuel, the youth offered by David and Salvador, the promise kept by Luis until his last breath. May my priesthood as a baptized Christian not shrink from the small persecutions of daily life. Make my ordinary life a stone laid in your temple.
A red dirt road under the August sun, and four shadows walking without looking back.
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