FAQ
When is Blessed Jose's Feastday?
- February 10th, the day of his martyrdom
Is Blessed Jose available in Spanish?
- We are working on a translation at present. Once finished, we will add it to the site.
Might José have wanted his martyrdom too much? I've read about the so-called 9th-century Martyrs of Cordoba, most of whom sought their deaths by insulting Mohammed in public or before public authorities, or by making a public display of their apostasy from Islam. This caused division in the Christian community because some people, such as Bishop Reccafredo, regarded these actions as the equivalent to committing suicide. Did José have a suicidal tendency in him as well?
Well, couldn’t the same be said of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, who famously did his best to persuade his fellow Christians to let him die a martyr’s death? He wrote in his Letter to the Romans:
“I am writing to all the churches to declare to them all that I am glad to die for God, provided you do not hinder me. I beg you not to show me a misplaced kindness. Let me be the food of beasts that I may come to God. I am his wheat, and I shall be ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may become Christ’s pure bread.”
Sure, Ignatius could have escaped his martyrdom, as could José. But to both of them, that escape would have been tantamount to denying their faith.
Did José have a suicidal tendency? First you must answer the question, “What is suicide? It is “the action of killing oneself intentionally”. Did José kill himself? Not at all.
What confuses us today is how black and white José saw everything. None of us have ever seen soldiers take over our parish church and reduce it to a shambles. None of us have ever seen people killed simply for going to Church.
To José, things were very simple. The Cristeros were fighting against the enemies of God and the Church to reopen the Churches and bring back freedom of religion. Any cooperation with the Federal side, was, for José, the very same thing as denying his Faith. So when the Federals offered him a place in their own army, he replied, “I’d rather die. I’m your enemy. Shoot me!”
Suicide would be José grabbing the rifle and shooting himself. This he did not do. Granted, José was extremely cavalier in his replies. But reading the story of his whole life – and not just taking those very macho replies of his on their own – one quickly comes to see that José was a boy in whom there was no guile. Life for him was black and white. Once he had joined the Cristeros, to do anything else, whether it was join the Federal Army, or just be sent away to live in the USA, was, for José, apostasy.
Could we call José “overeager” for martyrdom? Well, maybe, if you call Saint Ignatius of Antioch that. Look at any martyr for that sake. Maximilian Kolbe didn’t have to put his life on the line. Saint Isaac Jogues didn’t have to return to the Indian missions after his brutal torture, nor did Saint Jean de Brebeuf have to accompany his companions to their death and his own.
Our Lord Himself could have stopped his passion and death at any number of moments: “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt 26:53) He could have walked away before his capture, and yet he didn’t. José certainly would have escaped and run away to join the Cristeros again if he could have.
It’s not that there was no way out of it that makes a martyr a martyr. There are many martyrs of that sort. But there are many more who – in some way or another – set themselves up, actively or passively, for their martyrdom.
José, along with many of the Mexican Catholics of his day, saw things very clearly. The churches had been closed, and they had to be reopened at any cost. If this meant death, so be it, for death in the cause of God was only entry into heaven. He wrote to his own mother: “Please accept the will of God – I die very happy, because I die in battle alongside our Lord.”
One old Mexican man, recalling those days, tells how his mother Mrs. Petra Rivas, who risked death herself to take clothes and food to the soldiers regularly, actually instructed him to join the Cristero cause.
“But what if I die and never see you again?” he asked. “Then you will be a martyr for Christ and I will see you in Heaven, where you will be waiting for me,” she replied. (http://www.traditioninaction.org/movies/016mrCristeroMartyr.htm)
The people of his own day saw very clearly that José was a martyr. His own cousin, Macario Sánchez Sánchez, who was only a year younger than José and who visited him at his prison window, said in his testimony, “The people all agreed that he had died for love of Christ the King. There were his remains and the people took handfuls of the dirt stained with the blood of him whom they considered a martyr.”
In the end, it is the Church who decides whether someone is a martyr or not. And the Church has spoken, José is Blessed, enrolled among the number of the martyrs, killed out of hatred for the faith.
And might I add that I personally, wish there were more young men on this earth who had the courage and fortitude of José. We need more saints!
1.5 What was the ultimate reason for Blessed José’s martyrdom?
Good question! It wasn’t just his having joined the Cristeros. If it was, he would never have been offered his freedom for changing sides. Nor would Rafael Picazo have offered to send him to the USA.
Blessed José was ultimately martyred for one small deed of his – killing Picazo’s prized fighting roosters. This drove the mayor of Sahuayo to order the brutal execution of his own godson.
Why would the Catholic Church declare “Blessed” someone who was killed for killing a few animals that didn’t belong to him, you might ask? The answer is that killing those roosters was not the petty act of a boy, it was a heroic defense of God and His rights.
The roosters had been placed upon the altar of the Church, and José saw very simply and clearly that this was a sacrilege. “There where you belong, Lord, they tie up their fighting roosters. I won’t stand for it.” He knew what he was doing. He was putting his life on the line. And Picazo ultimately had him killed for that small act of defiance of his.
2. Is it possible that some of the stories coming down about his martyrdom are a folk’s hagiography, i.e. not to be trusted for their veracity. I’m thinking in particular about his drawing a bloody cross in the sand with his finger just before the final bullet. Was anyone in a position to see that, or did the thugs themselves tell about this later?
Certainly it is difficult to know exactly what is fact and what is legend in the life of José. I read everything ever written (to my knowledge) about José, and tried to piece together his life story from a host of conflicting evidence. Most helpful was the “Positio” or document prepared for the Vatican for the Beatification process of José. It contained pages of eye-witness testimony.
As for José’s death, as far as we know, the only witnesses there inside the cemetery were the group of assassins known as “La Acordada”, hired by Rafael Picazo. So they would have been the only ones to know the gruesome details. These men were locals, and after the war many of them continued living in Sahuayo. “Los Gallos de Picazo o Los Derechos de Dios” by Father Luis Laureán, LC, contains an interview with one of these men and his wife. The bandit called La Aguada, in particular, lived at least into the late 90’s, though he suffered from dementia. We can be sure that these men told the story of José’s last hours to the villagers of Sahuayo.
We know that there were also some townspeople witnessing the martyrdom from a distance – from outside the cemetery.
And that’s one of the most interesting things about the story of José – most of what we know about him lives in the people of Sahuayo. It’s in the stories they’ve heard and passed to one another and their children.
So did José draw a cross in the dirt with his blood? I’m not sure. I don’t have a photo or an eye-witness testimony. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Would it be the kind of thing José would do? After spending 10 years researching his life, I can give you a resounding YES! He lived to defy the enemies of God. His refrain to their every attack and question was “Long live Christ the King!” It seems totally in character to me that, given the opportunity, he would draw a cross in the ground with his own blood, even if just moments before his death.
What about the episode of the well? Did this really happen?
There is no written documentation of the episode of the well. This is only local legend. But it is certainly in character with the brutal nature of the band of men who ultimately martyred José, and an event like the martyrdom of a 14 year-old boy is the kind of event that sticks out in the memory of a people.
3. One of José’s torturers/murderers was apparently later repentant about the crime and frequently prayed at the boy’s tomb in the crypt of the Sagrado Corazón church (Cornelia R. Ferreira, Blessed José Luis Sánchez del Rio: Cristero Boy Martyr, p. 21). A boy who by all appearances contributed to transforming a man’s life seems to me like a very important point for showing the blessing of his martyrdom. I am curious as to why you did not mention this in the book.
I could have, perhaps in the epilogue. Maybe in a future edition I will!
4. People around here are very turned off by child soldiers, and I personally do not find it wise to try defending this practice. How should one address this issue when telling about José, or if one chooses to avoid it, what can one nevertheless say when someone else broaches the topic?
Children should not be soldiers. And that was a stipulation of José’s parents when they let him go off and try to join the Cristeros. He was not to fight or shoot a gun, only help the army with small tasks. José’s own mother was a member of the “Joan of Arc Brigades”, women who smuggled supplies to the Cristeros. This must have played a part in José’s being allowed to join the Cristeros.
The Cristeros themselves only accepted José into the army to help in camp, not to fight.
He always thought of himself as a soldier, but he was just a helper. Eventually he became General Morfín’s flag-bearer and bugler, but still, he wasn’t ever made a soldier. As far as my research shows, the only time he fired in combat was defending himself behind the dead horse of General Morfín before being captured.
5. Is anything known about the life of General Guízar Morfin after José saved him?
In my research I didn’t come across anything. I will let you know if I do in the future.
6. Concerning an unpleasant subject, I read in a couple of places that Fr. Marcial Maciel was a young friend of José. I also saw in Wikipedia that Maciel plagiarized a book, El salterio de mis días. Is that the source of this claim to friendship? Can we assume that the claim is without foundation?
Yes, Maciel claimed to have met José.
Should the two have met before José joined the Cristeros, Maciel would have been too young, maybe 6 or 7, to have had much of a conversation with him. Maciel claimed that José asked him to come with him to join the Cristeros. But why would a 13-year old ask a 7-year old to leave home with him?
There is no way Maciel could have met him during his time with the Cristeros, or during his imprisonment in Cotija, and it is extremely unlikely that the two would have met during José’s last days in Sahuayo before his martyrdom.
From what I can tell, Maciel’s claim is highly questionable.
7. What are the sources for the Cristero phase of Jose’s life? Can I be confident that he led the recitation of the rosary with the Cristero soldiers? Please don’t misunderstand me as questioning your integrity. You had to reconstruct some parts of the story, such as some dialogues and inner thought processes. I am not always certain where the reconstruction ends.
Most of my sources for José’s time with the Cristeros are interviews contained in the Positio prepared for his beatification. One of the men interviewed, Enrique Mireles Ochoa, states that José led the rosary and invited the other men to pray.
Yes, I did have to reconstruct many parts of the story, but I used every last shred of detail I could find in the testimony of the witnesses, the contemporary documents, and local legend.
What about the recent movie, “For Greater Glory”? Is it a faithful portrayal of José and his martyrdom?
“For Greater Glory” is, in my opinion, an excellent film. That said, there is much poetic license at work. José’s parish priest was not an Englishman, and he was not murdered, certainly not before José’s very eyes. José never knew or met General Gorostieta, as far as we know, and certainly did not serve under him. He was martyred at night, not in the afternoon. José was not killed with his parents standing witness, and neither Gorostieta nor any Cristero came to his rescue or avenged his murder as far as we know.
- February 10th, the day of his martyrdom
Is Blessed Jose available in Spanish?
- We are working on a translation at present. Once finished, we will add it to the site.
Might José have wanted his martyrdom too much? I've read about the so-called 9th-century Martyrs of Cordoba, most of whom sought their deaths by insulting Mohammed in public or before public authorities, or by making a public display of their apostasy from Islam. This caused division in the Christian community because some people, such as Bishop Reccafredo, regarded these actions as the equivalent to committing suicide. Did José have a suicidal tendency in him as well?
Well, couldn’t the same be said of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, who famously did his best to persuade his fellow Christians to let him die a martyr’s death? He wrote in his Letter to the Romans:
“I am writing to all the churches to declare to them all that I am glad to die for God, provided you do not hinder me. I beg you not to show me a misplaced kindness. Let me be the food of beasts that I may come to God. I am his wheat, and I shall be ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may become Christ’s pure bread.”
Sure, Ignatius could have escaped his martyrdom, as could José. But to both of them, that escape would have been tantamount to denying their faith.
Did José have a suicidal tendency? First you must answer the question, “What is suicide? It is “the action of killing oneself intentionally”. Did José kill himself? Not at all.
What confuses us today is how black and white José saw everything. None of us have ever seen soldiers take over our parish church and reduce it to a shambles. None of us have ever seen people killed simply for going to Church.
To José, things were very simple. The Cristeros were fighting against the enemies of God and the Church to reopen the Churches and bring back freedom of religion. Any cooperation with the Federal side, was, for José, the very same thing as denying his Faith. So when the Federals offered him a place in their own army, he replied, “I’d rather die. I’m your enemy. Shoot me!”
Suicide would be José grabbing the rifle and shooting himself. This he did not do. Granted, José was extremely cavalier in his replies. But reading the story of his whole life – and not just taking those very macho replies of his on their own – one quickly comes to see that José was a boy in whom there was no guile. Life for him was black and white. Once he had joined the Cristeros, to do anything else, whether it was join the Federal Army, or just be sent away to live in the USA, was, for José, apostasy.
Could we call José “overeager” for martyrdom? Well, maybe, if you call Saint Ignatius of Antioch that. Look at any martyr for that sake. Maximilian Kolbe didn’t have to put his life on the line. Saint Isaac Jogues didn’t have to return to the Indian missions after his brutal torture, nor did Saint Jean de Brebeuf have to accompany his companions to their death and his own.
Our Lord Himself could have stopped his passion and death at any number of moments: “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt 26:53) He could have walked away before his capture, and yet he didn’t. José certainly would have escaped and run away to join the Cristeros again if he could have.
It’s not that there was no way out of it that makes a martyr a martyr. There are many martyrs of that sort. But there are many more who – in some way or another – set themselves up, actively or passively, for their martyrdom.
José, along with many of the Mexican Catholics of his day, saw things very clearly. The churches had been closed, and they had to be reopened at any cost. If this meant death, so be it, for death in the cause of God was only entry into heaven. He wrote to his own mother: “Please accept the will of God – I die very happy, because I die in battle alongside our Lord.”
One old Mexican man, recalling those days, tells how his mother Mrs. Petra Rivas, who risked death herself to take clothes and food to the soldiers regularly, actually instructed him to join the Cristero cause.
“But what if I die and never see you again?” he asked. “Then you will be a martyr for Christ and I will see you in Heaven, where you will be waiting for me,” she replied. (http://www.traditioninaction.org/movies/016mrCristeroMartyr.htm)
The people of his own day saw very clearly that José was a martyr. His own cousin, Macario Sánchez Sánchez, who was only a year younger than José and who visited him at his prison window, said in his testimony, “The people all agreed that he had died for love of Christ the King. There were his remains and the people took handfuls of the dirt stained with the blood of him whom they considered a martyr.”
In the end, it is the Church who decides whether someone is a martyr or not. And the Church has spoken, José is Blessed, enrolled among the number of the martyrs, killed out of hatred for the faith.
And might I add that I personally, wish there were more young men on this earth who had the courage and fortitude of José. We need more saints!
1.5 What was the ultimate reason for Blessed José’s martyrdom?
Good question! It wasn’t just his having joined the Cristeros. If it was, he would never have been offered his freedom for changing sides. Nor would Rafael Picazo have offered to send him to the USA.
Blessed José was ultimately martyred for one small deed of his – killing Picazo’s prized fighting roosters. This drove the mayor of Sahuayo to order the brutal execution of his own godson.
Why would the Catholic Church declare “Blessed” someone who was killed for killing a few animals that didn’t belong to him, you might ask? The answer is that killing those roosters was not the petty act of a boy, it was a heroic defense of God and His rights.
The roosters had been placed upon the altar of the Church, and José saw very simply and clearly that this was a sacrilege. “There where you belong, Lord, they tie up their fighting roosters. I won’t stand for it.” He knew what he was doing. He was putting his life on the line. And Picazo ultimately had him killed for that small act of defiance of his.
2. Is it possible that some of the stories coming down about his martyrdom are a folk’s hagiography, i.e. not to be trusted for their veracity. I’m thinking in particular about his drawing a bloody cross in the sand with his finger just before the final bullet. Was anyone in a position to see that, or did the thugs themselves tell about this later?
Certainly it is difficult to know exactly what is fact and what is legend in the life of José. I read everything ever written (to my knowledge) about José, and tried to piece together his life story from a host of conflicting evidence. Most helpful was the “Positio” or document prepared for the Vatican for the Beatification process of José. It contained pages of eye-witness testimony.
As for José’s death, as far as we know, the only witnesses there inside the cemetery were the group of assassins known as “La Acordada”, hired by Rafael Picazo. So they would have been the only ones to know the gruesome details. These men were locals, and after the war many of them continued living in Sahuayo. “Los Gallos de Picazo o Los Derechos de Dios” by Father Luis Laureán, LC, contains an interview with one of these men and his wife. The bandit called La Aguada, in particular, lived at least into the late 90’s, though he suffered from dementia. We can be sure that these men told the story of José’s last hours to the villagers of Sahuayo.
We know that there were also some townspeople witnessing the martyrdom from a distance – from outside the cemetery.
And that’s one of the most interesting things about the story of José – most of what we know about him lives in the people of Sahuayo. It’s in the stories they’ve heard and passed to one another and their children.
So did José draw a cross in the dirt with his blood? I’m not sure. I don’t have a photo or an eye-witness testimony. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Would it be the kind of thing José would do? After spending 10 years researching his life, I can give you a resounding YES! He lived to defy the enemies of God. His refrain to their every attack and question was “Long live Christ the King!” It seems totally in character to me that, given the opportunity, he would draw a cross in the ground with his own blood, even if just moments before his death.
What about the episode of the well? Did this really happen?
There is no written documentation of the episode of the well. This is only local legend. But it is certainly in character with the brutal nature of the band of men who ultimately martyred José, and an event like the martyrdom of a 14 year-old boy is the kind of event that sticks out in the memory of a people.
3. One of José’s torturers/murderers was apparently later repentant about the crime and frequently prayed at the boy’s tomb in the crypt of the Sagrado Corazón church (Cornelia R. Ferreira, Blessed José Luis Sánchez del Rio: Cristero Boy Martyr, p. 21). A boy who by all appearances contributed to transforming a man’s life seems to me like a very important point for showing the blessing of his martyrdom. I am curious as to why you did not mention this in the book.
I could have, perhaps in the epilogue. Maybe in a future edition I will!
4. People around here are very turned off by child soldiers, and I personally do not find it wise to try defending this practice. How should one address this issue when telling about José, or if one chooses to avoid it, what can one nevertheless say when someone else broaches the topic?
Children should not be soldiers. And that was a stipulation of José’s parents when they let him go off and try to join the Cristeros. He was not to fight or shoot a gun, only help the army with small tasks. José’s own mother was a member of the “Joan of Arc Brigades”, women who smuggled supplies to the Cristeros. This must have played a part in José’s being allowed to join the Cristeros.
The Cristeros themselves only accepted José into the army to help in camp, not to fight.
He always thought of himself as a soldier, but he was just a helper. Eventually he became General Morfín’s flag-bearer and bugler, but still, he wasn’t ever made a soldier. As far as my research shows, the only time he fired in combat was defending himself behind the dead horse of General Morfín before being captured.
5. Is anything known about the life of General Guízar Morfin after José saved him?
In my research I didn’t come across anything. I will let you know if I do in the future.
6. Concerning an unpleasant subject, I read in a couple of places that Fr. Marcial Maciel was a young friend of José. I also saw in Wikipedia that Maciel plagiarized a book, El salterio de mis días. Is that the source of this claim to friendship? Can we assume that the claim is without foundation?
Yes, Maciel claimed to have met José.
Should the two have met before José joined the Cristeros, Maciel would have been too young, maybe 6 or 7, to have had much of a conversation with him. Maciel claimed that José asked him to come with him to join the Cristeros. But why would a 13-year old ask a 7-year old to leave home with him?
There is no way Maciel could have met him during his time with the Cristeros, or during his imprisonment in Cotija, and it is extremely unlikely that the two would have met during José’s last days in Sahuayo before his martyrdom.
From what I can tell, Maciel’s claim is highly questionable.
7. What are the sources for the Cristero phase of Jose’s life? Can I be confident that he led the recitation of the rosary with the Cristero soldiers? Please don’t misunderstand me as questioning your integrity. You had to reconstruct some parts of the story, such as some dialogues and inner thought processes. I am not always certain where the reconstruction ends.
Most of my sources for José’s time with the Cristeros are interviews contained in the Positio prepared for his beatification. One of the men interviewed, Enrique Mireles Ochoa, states that José led the rosary and invited the other men to pray.
Yes, I did have to reconstruct many parts of the story, but I used every last shred of detail I could find in the testimony of the witnesses, the contemporary documents, and local legend.
What about the recent movie, “For Greater Glory”? Is it a faithful portrayal of José and his martyrdom?
“For Greater Glory” is, in my opinion, an excellent film. That said, there is much poetic license at work. José’s parish priest was not an Englishman, and he was not murdered, certainly not before José’s very eyes. José never knew or met General Gorostieta, as far as we know, and certainly did not serve under him. He was martyred at night, not in the afternoon. José was not killed with his parents standing witness, and neither Gorostieta nor any Cristero came to his rescue or avenged his murder as far as we know.