Sunday, June 03, 2012

Un Corrido de Los Cristeros: El martes me fusilan

A ballad of the Cristeros, sung by Vincente Fernandez (in honor of those who died defending religious freedom in Mexico during the Mexican Cristero War and persecution of the Catholic Church by the Mexican revolutionary government in the 1920s.



English translation of the lyrics:
At six on Tuesday morning,
they will shoot me
for believing in the eternal God
and the great Lady of Guadalupe.

A holy card of Jesus
they found in my sombrero;
Thus, I was sentenced to die
because I am a Cristero.

And for this I will be shot,
at six on Tuesday morning.
My useless body, they will end
But never, never my soul will they bend.

I'd tell my tormentors
that I wanted to be crucified;
And once crucified
Ask them to use their rifles.

Goodbye sierras of Jalisco,
Michoacan and Guanajuato,
where the government fought
but always left running away.

They will grab me, kneeling,
while worshiping Jesus Christ.
They know that there will be no defense
In this blessed site.

I am a peasant by inheritance,
by birth, Jalisciense;
I have no other God than Christ
For He gave me my life.

By killing me, they will not kill
my belief in the eternal God;
Many die in the fight
but many others are born to fight.

That's why they'll shoot me
at six on Tuesday morning.
¡Viva Cristo Rey!

2 comments:

Alejandro Valencia said...

Alan, imagine my shock when I found out about this terrible period in Mexican history. I was born in Mexico and raised in an authentically Mexican family and I found out when I was in my mid-20s that a country that I thought was thoroughly Catholic since the apparition of our Blessed Mother in the 1500s could be the setting for such an anti-Catholic persecution. May God spare us, but I have a feeling many traditionally Christian countries may be heading that same way.

Alan Phipps said...

Yes, Alejandro, you are right. It seems many Mexican citizens aren't aware of this important history. My understanding is that there are still anticlerical elements in the Mexican constitution tracing back to 1917, but many of these laws are simply unenforced today.

Incidentally, my wife discovered that she may be related to some of those who fought in the Cristero movement, and her paternal grandmother's family is from the town of San Miguel el Alto in Jalisco, which is where many other Cristeros lived, including Victoriano Ramirez ("el Catorce"). She's going to investigate further to see what it yields.

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