The Centenary of the Cristiada: Religious Memory or Political Resource?
Diego Martín Velázquez Caballero
Television programs on Canal Once—specifically "Sacro y Profano" and "Los Periodistas"—have analyzed the outbreak of the Cristero War a century later. The question arises once more: what does it mean to remember that conflict?
The question should not be limited to determining who was right—the government of Plutarco Elías Calles or the Catholic hierarchy.
There is a more uncomfortable contemporary issue: who needs to reclaim that memory today, and for what purpose?
Mexico remains predominantly Catholic.
The 2020 Census recorded that 77.7% of the population identified with that religion. However, this national figure masks significant regional differences.
Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán, and Zacatecas maintain Catholic populations exceeding 88%, whereas in other states, the Catholic population is considerably smaller.
This leads to an initial hypothesis: the memory of the "Cristiada" does not necessarily hold the same political significance across all of Mexico.
The problem arises when a religious memory ceases to be merely historical and begins to function as a political identity.
To demonstrate that this is happening, it is not enough simply to point to bishops speaking about the "Cristiada" or Catholic organizations honoring its martyrs.
One must observe which symbols are being revived, which contemporary enemies are associated with them, which actors are promoting this memory, and what political objectives are linked to its use.
The centenary of the Cristero War may be creating an opportunity for certain conservative sectors to transform a regional religious memory into a tool for mobilization. The Mexican Episcopal Conference itself states that the commemoration is not intended to glorify violence or to place that memory at the service of any political or partisan agenda.
It even acknowledges that the conflict involved political calculations, erroneous decisions, and instances of culpability within the Church itself.
Therefore, it would be insufficient to claim that the hierarchy is simply manipulating that memory. If the memory of the Cristero War remains confined to religious acts, pilgrimages, lectures, and historical tributes, we will see evidence of a revival of religious memory, but not necessarily of a political maneuver.
However, if we begin to observe—the identification of contemporary political adversaries with the Church's historical enemies, the use of Cristero symbols in political campaigns or movements, and a concentration of such mobilization in regions with large Catholic populations—then more solid evidence would emerge of religious memory transforming into political identity.
A commemoration can bolster the public authority of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but it can also benefit conservative organizations, right-wing movements, or political actors seeking to portray themselves as defenders of a threatened religious tradition.
For this reason, the centenary of the Cristero War should be studied less as a dispute over the past and more as an experiment regarding the present.
The question is not merely who won that war, but who can gain political power by defining what it means to remember it a century later.
The evidence must be sought beyond commemorative speeches: in patterns of mobilization, political messaging, participating organizations, territorial distribution, and, above all, in the response of the citizens themselves.
Felipe Gaitan, Fernando M. González, and Roberto Blancarte agree that the Catholic hierarchy has consistently manipulated sociopolitical processes to weaken the Mexican State; this fact should also be part of the historical assessment.
The Catholic Church has been a systematic adversary of the Mexican State and its liberal development; now, amidst the political maneuvering of the "Fourth Transformation," the eternal game of invisible power resurfaces to hinder national modernization.
It is curious that, during this centenary, the Catholic Church is a key player in the federal government's disarmament campaigns, and that President Sheinbaum has requested a visit to Mexico by Pope Leo XIV.
The influence of Benito Juárez on the "Fourth Transformation" has been diminished to an incredible degree—a phenomenon explicable only by the populist, progressive, revolutionary conservatism of the current era.
