La Cristiada. Fe, guerra y diplomacia en México (1926-1929)

The Cristero War (or Cristiada) was a dramatic event not only for Mexico but also for universal Catholicism, which between 1926 and 1929 was the protagonist of an unprecedented mobilisation effort in support of Mexican Catholics persecuted by the government of Plutarco Elias Calles. In the front line, both in opposing the "conspiracy of silence" that seemed to envelop the situation of the Church in Mexico, and in favouring a diplomatic solution to the armed conflict, was the Holy See, whose archives today allow us to reconstruct the reflections and doubts that passed through the Curia of Pius XI, together with the decisions taken by the pope and his collaborators. In the eyes of Achille Ratti, who in those years was witnessing the advance of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes in Europe and the spread of communist ideology on a global scale, the Mexican question was anything but peripheral, as it led the papal magisterium to confront decisive challenges for the present and future of the Church, from the problem of the legitimacy of resorting to arms against constituted authority, to the evolution of Catholic doctrine towards full acceptance of the right to religious freedom.