Twenty-five martyrs of the Cristero War, shot for continuing to exercise their ministry.
The Mexican constitution of 1917, then the Calles Law of 1926, stripped the clergy of legal personality, closed religious schools and forbade public worship. The brutal application of these laws provoked the Cristero rising. Twenty-two priests and three laymen, put to death between 1915 and 1937 for continuing to celebrate, were established through the processes. Cristóbal Magallanes Jara, born at Totatiche in 1869, had opened a clandestine seminary when his own was closed; he publicly disapproved of the armed revolt. Arrested on 21 May 1927 on his way to say Mass, he was shot four days later at Colotlán without trial, after giving his belongings to his executioners and declaring that he forgave them. John Paul II canonised them in 2000.
Priests in cassocks, palms in hand, before a firing squad or a wall; one holds a rosary, a Mexican hat at his feet.