Miguel Agustín Pro

Father Miguel Agustín Pro returned to Mexico in July 1926, at the precise moment when President Plutarco Elías Calles promulgated extremely severe anti-Catholic laws (the "Calles Law"), banning all public worship and ordering the closure of churches. Priestly ministry then had to be exercised in total clandestinity. Father Pro deployed intense and ingenious pastoral activity in Mexico City. To escape the police, he used numerous disguises: he dressed as a beggar to visit homes, as a police officer to bring the sacraments to prisoners, or as an elegant bourgeois. He organized clandestine "Eucharistic stations" in private homes, where he distributed communion to thousands of faithful each week. Alongside his sacramental ministry, he dedicated himself to the most destitute. He supported the families of workers materially and spiritually, helped single mothers, and cared for prostitutes by founding a home to help them change their lives. His humor, his vivacity, and his unconditional charity made him an extremely popular figure, beloved by the Catholics of the capital.

On November 13, 1927, a bomb attack was perpetrated against General Álvaro Obregón, a candidate for the presidency of the Republic. Although Father Pro and his brothers, Humberto and Roberto, had no connection to this plot (organized by members of the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty), the police used the fact that the assailants' car had belonged to Humberto to arrest them on November 17, 1927. The perpetrator of the attack, the engineer Luis Segura Vilchis, surrendered and formally exonerated the Pro brothers, but President Calles decided to make an example of Father Pro to terrorize the Catholic resistance (the Cristeros). Without any trial or presentation of evidence, Father Miguel Agustín Pro and his brother Humberto were sentenced to death. On November 23, 1927, Father Pro was led into the courtyard of the Mexico City police headquarters to be executed by firing squad. Before the execution, he refused to be blindfolded, forgave his executioners, and asked for a few moments to pray. He knelt, then stood up, spread his arms in the shape of a cross, holding a rosary in one hand and a crucifix in the other. His final words, spoken in a firm voice just before the shots were fired, were: "¡Viva Cristo Rey!" (Long live Christ the King!).

President Calles had ordered that the execution be photographed and published in the press to humiliate Catholics and break their morale. The effect produced was exactly the opposite: the images of Father Pro dying with his arms in the shape of a cross became the heroic symbol of the resistance of the faith. His burial, on November 25, 1927, brought together more than 20,000 people who accompanied him in silence, transforming his funeral into a spiritual triumph. The informative process for his cause of beatification opened on September 28, 1935, in Mexico. On November 10, 1986, Pope John Paul II officially recognized his martyrdom (death in hatred of the faith, in odium fidei), which dispensed with the requirement of a miracle for his beatification. Father Miguel Agustín Pro was solemnly beatified on September 25, 1988, by Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter's Square in Rome. His liturgical feast is set for November 23, the day of his martyrdom. His cause for canonization is currently underway in Rome.

The spirituality of Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro is deeply Eucharistic and Christocentric. For him, the daily celebration of the Mass and adoration were the source of all apostolic strength. His total offering to the divine will is expressed by an ardent desire to imitate Christ, including in his Passion. His distinctive mark is the "joy of God": even in the midst of the worst physical suffering and the constant dangers of living underground, he maintained a joyful spirit, convinced that sadness had no place in a servant of Christ. His legacy remains alive in Mexico and throughout the world. In 1988, the year of his beatification, the Mexican Jesuits founded the "Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez" (Centro Prodh), a human rights organization that continues his fight for the justice and dignity of the poorest. His relics are venerated in the Church of the Holy Family (Iglesia de la Sagrada Familia) in Mexico City.