The Cristero Counterrevolution and the Battle for the Soul of Mexico

A true religious war, never before seen on our continent, broke out as a result of certain persecutory laws against the Church and her faithful in Mexico from 1926 to 1929. In the conflict, a large part of the Catholic laity, using peaceful means at first and later violent ones, took up arms against the civil government—even to the regret and against the advice of many in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, unsure of the right course of action to take. Shouting “Long live Christ the King and Holy Mary of Guadalupe!,” Mexican Catholics defended the rights of God against a state dominated by secularist and anti-Christian ideology. Both the government and the Vatican, with the steady connivance of the United States, saw how detrimental the ongoing struggle was to their mutual interests; in consequence, an agreement or modus vivendi was reached and reluctantly accepted by the Cristero combatants, who, in the end, were betrayed by it. In this compelling book, published in multiple Spanish editions and now available in English for the conflict’s centenary in 2026, Fr. Ravasi tells the harrowing tale of the Cristero counterrevolution as seen through the eyes of its immediate protagonists—a story of unbelievable wickedness, corruption, and brutality opposed by unprecedented Catholic action, bravery, and sacrifice.