The Mexican government, during the persecution, any religious act was condemned by the law.
If they didn't fight at that time, we wouldn't have the churches open.
We forget what our grandparents did for our faith.
They were risking everything just to go to Mass.
They were risking their lives.
They were normal people and they were called to participate in the defense of their faith
and they willingly said yes to that call.
Part of the greater tragedy of the Cristero movement is that this period of
Mexican history has been basically wiped away from the history books.
One of the stimulating things of making the decisions of the film was that first of all, I didn't I knew nothing about the Christiana
You've got an incredible
captivating story
With characters you care about if you can put that in a background that's larger than life
That's epic. Then you can transform the movie into something extraordinary
This is not only another Hollywood movie, it's a spiritual journey.
Mexico in 1926 is reeling from more than a decade of war and violence.
The Mexican Revolution of 1910 has failed to create lasting peace.
President Plutarco Elias Calles seeks to centralize all power in the hands of the federal government.
He views the Catholic Church as an obstacle to his plan.
They are trying to eliminate every kind of competition.
You have this authoritarian regime trying to control everything.
Mexico's 1917 Constitution imposes many restrictions on the Catholic Church.
However, these controversial articles are not enforced until President Calles comes to power.
Our nation is under siege.
A plot to poison the minds and hearts of our people.
This threat will not be tolerated.
And the point is that it's a lie, that it's a lie that has to do with the constitution of the 17th century.
And when you look at it, you can see that it's terrible.
Overnight, public worship is forbidden.
The government seizes churches and monasteries,
and exiles foreign priests.
Mexican clergy are banned from wearing clerical garb in public
and threatened with jail if they criticize the calle's government.
In this situation, the persecution of Mexico
has been resolved,
suspending the culture of Turkey, the culture of Iglesia,
publically in the States.
and this is the end of the culture of this area,
the beginning of August, of the 19th century.
And we are very happy,
as you can see,
that the catacombas arrived in the land of God.
My father, he was all the time involved in protecting and helping high priests and bishops during the persecution.
And also my father, who used to disguise himself.
In fact, my mother would have on her bed
three different kinds of disguises.
So once in a while, he would come rush in,
change, and come out in the put of different disguise.
That was typical at that time.
The Mexican government was violently anti-clerical.
Not just closing churches, but shooting, hanging,
murdering, uh, priests.
They were losing their way of life,
and at the end, they were forbidden.
So they came to a conclusion that they had to resist for dignity.
People fought in self-defense, but it was the army against people with stones and bricks and nothing.
Many people in the clashes decided that there was no solution but the war.
For the next three years, Mexican Catholics wage a guerrilla war against insurmountable odds.
They become known as Christiros, named after their battle cry, Viva Christo Re, or Long Live Christ the King.
When the Cristero revolt begins, few take the rebellion seriously.
Least of all, President Calleis.
He writes to the French ambassador saying that without Mass and the sacraments,
Mexican Catholics will soon forget their faith and the conflict would be over within a year.
He really believed that.
No more Catholic Church,
no more fanaticism of the masses,
of the Indian masses.
And with his hostility, he couldn't understand the strong and religious feeling of the Mexican people.
I think that we must have a better place to go.
We must have a place where we can live.
And we must have a place where we can live.
We must have a place where we can live.
But we were here together, and we didn't have a place to be.
But it was great!
I was very happy.
I really like it, and I love it.
But their heroic struggle for freedom becomes long forgotten under government repression and fear.
That is until the creators of For Greater Glory decided to bring their story to the big screen.
Thank you.
I was searching for a group of people that really believed in what I was doing and could share that mission.
This is not only another Hollywood movie, it's a movie of standing up for what you believe.
It's a movie of that you have to have a spiritual journey.
When I was exploring Mexico with Pablo,
I got into the countryside and there'd be a little shrine for the priest
that had stood up for his flock and had been killed for it.
And it was really moving to see how important it was throughout the country
and how lost it had been.
I think this movie came to me more than I was looking for it because it's a period of history that nobody knows.
So we got a good script writer from Hollywood to do a little bit of research on.
On the period, we gave him the script, and then he started getting fascinated about this.
Michael Love, the writer, did an incredible job weaving all this together in something
that was very, very interesting and compelling.
What caught me were the lead characters, in that they were these heroic,
inspirational people, people who cared about their homes, their communities,
their faith, and they were willing
to do what they had to to preserve that.
What was great about the story and what Michael had done
and Pablo had done in developing it
was that they had pulled these specific,
very interesting characters
who had very different reactions on how to
achieve that goal.
We must find another peaceful solution.
And I clear to the armed conflict has already begun.
I say we support the rebellion.
They'll eat food, and medicine.
And ammunition.
We can support them with communication.
Pablo Jose Barroso sent me the script, and I said to him I want to be involved in this film
So I found out with blessed and a clay to us Alice Flores
They called him the Gandhi of Mexico, peacemaker, a lawyer, a wonderful man, a smart lay Catholic.
He was not afraid to die for his faith.
The script attracted the attention of some of Hollywood's biggest names.
My first intention was to try to get a great movie, not only a great cast list,
to go around the world and to give the message.
It was a very easy decision to make.
I knew it would attract good actors.
Essentially, for me, it's a story about absolute freedom
and what are people prepared to do to protect those rights.
In this case, the cause is their right to have religious freedom.
And of course, the character of Gorostieta was such a dynamic character
and so it was such an honor to get a chance to play him.
Andy especially. For me, I think it's the performance of a career for him.
Andy knew that this was a journey of faith for Grosjeda.
He couldn't find it. It was buried deep inside.
And his reason for entering into the conflict and helping was to preserve the right for freedom.
General Enrique Gorostieta is a rising star in the Mexican military.
But when the Federal Army disbands after the revolution, he is a general without an army.
So that young man lost all hope, all possibility, for a brilliant military career.
He was working for cosmetics.
And I found a letter of him with a general of the Mexican army making perfume for the lady.
What a shame, what a shame.
Leaders of the National League for the Defense of Religious Freedom
asked General Gorostieta to transform the disorganized
Christero fighters into a modern army.
Let's make an army. Let's make a, uh, formidable army out of a group of ragtag peasants of Warachis.
Out of a few game ranchers. Out of some tender-footed clergy who are trembling at the thought of holding a weapon for the first time.
You want me to make a National Guard out of that?
Look at me. Do you have proper weapons?
No. Do you have an ammunition supply?
No. Do you have a central command?
No. How many is that? Three no's. All you have is belief.
But belief will not save them in battle.
Despite their limited means, the Cristeros rally around Gorostieta's leadership and grow in numbers and in strength.
Their wives and daughters smuggle weapons and ammunition to the front lines.
the only ammunition they got outside from that they take in the battlefield.
Without a woman, you don't understand the Christiana.
Without a woman, you have no Christiana.
The Cristeiro's newfound success sends ripples of shock through the Federal Army.
President Calles can no longer expect an easy victory.
My prequentavan que cuantos a bien matade,
que no y uno maten y uno.
Las valas que en sabde que y uno.
The Cristiada, at its best moment, counted more than 40,000 rifles, 50,000 in small bands
all over the country, and 25,000 in the central west of the country.
Under the supreme leadership of Gorosieta the Cristero are climbing
Today we are going to send a message.
We are going to send a message to Caius and to the rest of the world.
That freedom is not just for writers and for politicians and and for fancy documents freedom
Freedom is our home our wives our children our faith
And we will defend it or die trying
It is not only our duty to defend it, but it is all right
Then men will fire bullets, but God decides where they land
Que viva Christo rez!
Que viva!
Que viva Christo rez!
They say that he was there for the money or he was there for power because he wanted to become a president.
When my grandmother died, she left the...
letters that my grandfather wrote to her.
My mother showed them to me.
In the letters you can see that he really believed
in freedom for the faith.
He discovered the real Christianity in the face of the Mexican people and in the face of his soldiers.
He might not be a religious person, but he believes in the right to be religious, you know, in the concept of absolute freedom.
And in the process he has a sort of a spiritual awakening because of the relationship he has with his young boy.
And there were two key roles we had to fill, Gros Diera and José.
For José we were getting a little worried because all the cast deals were coming together,
we were getting closer and closer to our start date.
We're on an incredible deadline, I had to make this decision very soon.
We did three scenes, I had to memorize, we taped them, we watched them.
It was Mauricio, Mauricio Curry, and we're like, he's perfect.
I think for me it was really important not only to have, you know, a real child, a real
person about that same age, that still had that incredible youthful exuberance and spirit.
The character Jose is based on the real-life story of blessed Jose Sanchez del Rio,
a 14-year-old Mexican martyr whose courage and faith inspire his fellow Cristeros.
His generosity is just overwhelming because you see a young kid saying that
Biba Cristo Rey understanding how important it was for him to have faith
and he was able to transform that into the action of joining the Ristero army
and then to the point of giving his life for the value of his conviction and his
belief in God.
Father, the Federal soldiers are coming. You must hide.
Hide. I'm too old to hide.
Please, Father. Come with me.
They were able to put together their personal interests.
They came to a university in the city of Los Angeles.
The city of Los Angeles was very important.
In the city of Los Angeles, they were able to take care of their families.
They had the power of their families.
They had to do their work.
He was the example of a great parish priest.
It is prohibited to save my husband and all of this.
He was preparing for mass when the government actually arrested him.
He knew that he was going to die.
He forgave his executors and then they hang him.
Father Robles is also well-known as a proud member of the Knights of Columbus,
an organization ruthlessly singled out for elimination.
The Knights of Columbus began activities in Mexico in 1905.
About a 1920s, the Knights were very active throughout the country.
And as the Caius government began to crack down on the Catholic Church,
we were also...
victims in martyrs. Many of our members lost their lives. Two-thirds of our
councils were shut down by the government. Six members who were priests
have been canonized as martyrs.
In the United States, the Knights of Columbus reacted to the situation immediately passing
a resolution at the Supreme Convention condemning what Kias is doing in Mexico.
The Knights had also begun raising $1 million for the purposes of educating the American
public about the situation with the persecution.
The Knights of Columbus were tremendously influential.
They created a positive public opinion.
They clearly mobilized American Catholics.
But the Knights' efforts also raised the specter of anti-Catholicism in the United States.
Supporters of President Kais include the powerful KKK.
This caused a lot of criticism of the Knights.
This is the 1920s, the 1920s is when the Ku Klux Klan was at its peak in America.
I found in the archives of President Khayyas,
telegram of the clan and they'd say to President Khayyas,
the Knights of Columbus are rising a fund of one million dollars
for the Mexican Catholic Church. If you need it,
we'll rise a fund of ten million dollars for helping you in your
valiant fight.
The Knights create a public outcry that reaches all the way to the White House.
I warn you from experience that there's no negotiating with Kias.
Thank you for your assessment and your advice, but I am the current ambassador to Mexico.
The results of your tenure speak for themselves.
Now, why am I getting all this pressure from the nights of Columbus?
about this conflict between Chias and the Church.
Something that Americans hold very near and dear to their spirit
is the freedom of religion.
And so the fact that they were speaking to such clearly American values,
I think this is what gave them traction in advocating
for activism on the part of the United States
in terms of religious persecution in Mexico.
The Knights of Columbus met with President Coolidge and outlined the problems with what
was happening in Mexico and basically asked for U.S. involvement, U.S. pressure on Kaya's
and his regime to back off.
the persecution of the church.
This pressure from both sides, from both ends,
the government, obviously, from the United States,
was putting some pressure on the ambassador
of the United States in Mexico.
All these after three years helped
to bring the government to settle things.
So they agreed to sign what is known
the Los Arreglos in 1929.
The 1929 peace agreement opens the churches and restores religious freedom for Mexican Catholics.
But the Constitution remains unchanged, allowing future governments to once again turn the law against the faith.
For the Kristeros, the treaty was a death sentence.
Fearful of a resurgence, 500 Kristero leaders are rounded up and executed.
5,000 others are purged in what becomes the Kristeros finalist.
sacrifice for religious freedom.
History has approached the Glistera Revolt with silence.
Nobody was allowed to talk about that.
It was a painful time.
It's time to set the record straight. It's a great new movie for greater glory. It tells the record in a very historically accurate way.
I want people, again, to connect with...
these individuals and see who they are, real people, flawed like you and me who
when push came to shove were put in a position and had to make a choice and
the choice was do I run and hide? Do I bend in my faith, my beliefs?
But in the example of the men and women that participated in that movement, it's a great example for us.
It's a great lesson for us to learn of how important religious freedom is in our time.
For me, it's more than only something that happened 80 years ago.
I think this is something that really is the foundation, not only of Mexico,
but I think also of the whole continent.
I don't know what would happen if these brave people wouldn't have stood up for their beliefs.