Cristero War

Between August 1926 and June 1929, Catholic rebels in central and western Mexico fought the federal government over its strict enforcement of the anticlerical provisions of the 1917 Constitution. The fighters became known as Cristeros after their cry of "Cristo Rey", Christ the King. The war ended not in battle but in a church–state settlement brokered by the American ambassador, and it is often seen both as a chapter in Mexico's long quarrel between church and state and as the country's last great peasant rising after the revolution.

The Mexican Revolution that began in 1910 left the Catholic hierarchy distrusted by many revolutionaries, who accused senior clergy of backing the usurper Victoriano Huerta in 1913–14. The Constitution of 1917 made education secular, limited what religious bodies could own, required churches to register, barred priests from politics and let states cap the number of clergy. Presidents Venustiano Carranza and Álvaro Obregón enforced these clauses unevenly.

Plutarco Elías Calles, president from 1924, chose strict enforcement. In June 1926 he signed a reform of the penal code, popularly called the Calles Law, that set penalties for breaches: a fine for a priest wearing clerical dress in public, and up to five years in prison for a priest who criticised the government. Foreign priests were expelled and religious schools, convents and monasteries closed. Catholic organisations, led by the National League for the Defence of Religious Liberty, organised an economic boycott with the bishops' backing in July, and many churches were closed. Congress rejected their petition to amend the constitution in September 1926.

Violence began on 3 August 1926, when some 400 armed Catholics barricaded themselves in a church in Guadalajara and fought federal troops until their ammunition ran out. Local risings followed in Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Durango and elsewhere, and a manifesto of 1 January 1927 launched a wider revolt centred on the Los Altos region of Jalisco. The rebels were mostly peasants with little training and old weapons; some were also fighting for land reform. Women's brigades named after Joan of Arc, which grew to many thousands of members, smuggled arms and supplies. The federal army, which had close to 80,000 men, at first expected an easy hunt, and the United States supplied it with weapons.

After early defeats, the Cristeros recovered when forced resettlement of villages drove more people to their side. The retired general Enrique Gorostieta joined them, and the Cristeros kept the upper hand through 1928. That year the president-elect, Obregón, was assassinated by a Catholic militant, setting back peace efforts. A failed Cristero attack on Guadalajara followed in March 1929, during an army revolt elsewhere.

The interim president Emilio Portes Gil was more open to compromise. Through talks led by Ambassador Dwight Morrow, an agreement was reached on 21 June 1929: worship resumed, the Church regained the use of its buildings, and the laws remained in force but went largely unenforced. The rebels had not been consulted, and many felt betrayed. Most laid down their arms under pressure from the bishops, but in the following years the government executed hundreds of Cristero leaders and thousands of former fighters, according to estimates cited by historians.

Estimates of the dead range from about 90,000, including some 57,000 federal soldiers and 30,000 Cristeros, to as many as 250,000 when civilians are included. Large numbers of Mexicans emigrated to the United States. A smaller second rising flared in the 1930s. Relations eased under Lázaro Cárdenas and Manuel Ávila Camacho, and in 1992 a constitutional reform granted religious groups legal status and property rights.

Our 1920 and 1930 maps show Mexico in the years just before and just after the war.