On an early morning a few years ago I walked from my hotel to the Jesuit parish in Mexico City where the remains of Blessed Miguel Pro are buried. Mass had just finished, so I walked up to the silver urn beneath his picture on the right side of the main altar. During my brief visit, I was struck by the courage of this young priest who valiantly defied the persecutors of the Church and willingly died though he knew he was innocent of any crime.
Ordained in 1925, Father Miguel Pro began his priestly ministry in Mexico at a time when public worship was forbidden and those faithful to the Catholic Church, clergy, religious, and lay, were readily executed. The clergy lost all rights and had to function clandestinely. In some states, all churches were closed and the faithful were publicly scorned.
In November 1927, Father Pro and his two brothers were rounded up, falsely charged for an assassination attempt against Mexico’s president-elect, and condemned to death without any legal process. Father Miguel Pro and one of his brothers were executed by a firing squad on November 23rd. The third was a minor, and so was sent to Cuba in exile. Pro defiantly refused to wear a blindfold, and before being executed, he stretched out his arms forming the shape of a cross and cried out, “Viva Cristo Rey!”
This death and public burial where over 40,000 lined up the streets of Mexico City as his body was taken to a cemetery where his father delivered some words, encouraged the faithful to continue fighting against the injustices committed by the government against all people of faith.
Beatified in 1988 by Pope John Paul II during one of his several visits to Mexico, he noted during his homily:
“Neither suffering nor serious illness, nor the exhausting ministerial activity, frequently carried out in difficult and dangerous circumstances, could stifle the radiating and contagious joy which he brought to his life for Christ and which nothing could take away. Indeed, the deepest root of self-sacrificing surrender for the lowly was his passionate love for Jesus Christ and his ardent desire to be conformed to him, even unto death.”
Blessed Miguel Pro, pray for us!
Picture in public domain
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