EL PASO, Texas — Not many fraternal organizations list six canonized martyrs among their membership.

The Knights of Columbus do. The six saints are Mexican priests canonized by Pope John Paul II on May 21, 2000. The Knights are currently taking their relics on a “pilgrimage” to several cities.

These Knight-priests were shot, hanged or savagely beaten to death in the 1920s and ’30s during the anti-clerical Mexican government’s persecution of the Church. Today, their heroic message is stirring new fervor among the faithful.

The Knights of Columbus Priest Martyrs of Mexico pilgrimage is “a way of promoting devotion to these saints who we are privileged to remember as our brother Knights,” said Stephen Feiler, special assistant to Supreme Knight Carl Anderson and a coordinator of the pilgrimage. “The pilgrimage is also intended to educate the public about a little known but important chapter of the Church’s history in our hemisphere.”

During a two-day stop in El Paso in March, nearly 8,000 people, not counting members from the city’s 17 councils and three assemblies, came to St. Patrick Cathedral for Masses, prayer services and private veneration of the relics.

“People started coming up and handing me the prayer cards and programs and asking me to touch them to the relic,” said Grand Knight Joe Maresca of Thunderbird Council 6711, local coordinator for the relics’ visit. “Then they started handing articles from wedding rings to scapulars to crosses to be touched to the relic. It was an impressive thing to see these people’s expressions of faith.”

Feiler said the 3-foot cross of Mexican silver containing the bones of these martyrs was presented to Anderson upon his installation as Supreme Knight by Knights of Columbus leaders in Mexico. He was installed in 2001 at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City and dedicated the order to her.

“They are all first-class relics ex ossibus (from bone),” Feiler noted. The name of each priest-martyr encircles his relic: Fathers Luis Batiz Sainz, Mateo Correa Magallanes, Miguel de la Mora de la Mora, Rodrigo Aguilar Alemán, José María Robles Hurtado and Pedro de Jésus Maldonado Lucero.

The last two have local connections that made the stop especially poignant.

El Paso Bishop Armando Ochoa, who celebrated Mass, led the opening procession and prayers, explained that Father Maldonado was born and reared in Chihuahua, but because of the anti-clerical spirit there he had to cross the border into the United States. “San Pedro,” as Father Maldonado was known locally, was ordained in El Paso’s cathedral in 1918, celebrated his first Mass there, and then returned to Mexico to work.

Among those venerating the relics were two women who had received their first holy Communion from San Pedro in the underground church in Chihuahua. Another woman from the town where San Pedro was martyred told Maresca and his wife, Mary, the saint had performed the wedding ceremony for her parents.

The Knights also made an unplanned side trip with the relic to El Paso’s Cristo Rey Monastery of Perpetual Adoration because two of the cloistered Sisters of Perpetual Adoration were grandnieces of one of the other martyrs, Father Hurtado.

In fact, the same bishop who ordained Father Maldonado in 1918, Bishop Anthony Schuler, later founded the Perpetual Adoration order’s monastery for exiled Mexican nuns and the training of new sisters.

The Marescas were moved to see the nuns — most from Mexico — singing Viva Cristo Rey (Long Live Christ the King) before the relic. Those were the martyrs’ final words before being killed.

“The whole weekend was teary and impressive,” Mary Maresca said. “You can’t help but get closer to God and what he has done for us through something like this.”

Her reactions have been repeated countless times since the pilgrimage was inaugurated in Mexico City in 2005 with a procession and ceremony at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe during the centennial celebration of the Knights of Columbus in Mexico.

The Mexican portion of the pilgrimage concluded in Tijuana March 11.

There, Missionaries of Charity priests and sisters operating houses in the poorest neighborhoods hosted the reliquary. Feiler said one priest considered this an act of providence that he hoped would result in many graces for their work among the poor.

A week later, the U.S. pilgrimage began in Dallas. In each place, Feiler found normal Mass attendance more than doubled, and since the start in Mexico tens of thousands of the faithful are coming to venerate the relics.

“One of the most gratifying things to witness is how the pilgrimage has affected priests,” he said. “Everywhere we’ve gone, there has been great excitement by the people and perhaps even more from the priests, who see the martyrs are true role models and heroes.”

According to Jean Meyer, professor of history at CIDE Mexico City (Economics Research Center) and author of The Christiad: The Mexican People Between the Catholic Church and the Revolutionary State 1926-1929 (Cambridge University, 1976), these martyrs lived in the Center West region deeply marked by a very dynamic and modern Catholicism with many strong lay organizations.

The Mexican revolution that began as democratic in 1910 saw anti-clerical leadership take over. President (Plutarco Elías) Calles’ anti-Catholic laws began in 1926.

“The clash with the Church developed precisely at that moment of terrible internal crisis … and the Catholic Church was a kind of scapegoat,” Meyers said. The president put the Church under strict government control and “Rome prohibited the Mexican bishops to obey the law; that was the beginning of the crisis.”

“The clash with the state provoked a kind of mystical spiritual mobilization,” he added. “Many Catholics were not in favor of the violence, but all were expecting and prepared for the martyrs.”

Today, their inspiration remains.

“The diversity of those venerating the relics has been inspiring and testifies to the fact that these martyrs are not just important to Mexicans,” Feiler finds, “but rather they are saints of the universal Church, and models for all Catholics regardless of ethnicity.”

As such, they have a special role concerning today’s immigration controversy, too.

Bishop Ochoa made clear that San Pedro — Father Maldonado — had to leave his country because of the anti-clericalism to be ordained a priest.

“So we welcomed him back to the mother Church of the Diocese of El Paso at this particular time when there seems to be an anti-immigrant spirit…. This is a time we can evoke his patronage for a greater respect around immigration issues around the Gospel values.”

The bishop’s own parents and grandparents left Mexico for the U.S. because they felt they couldn’t raise the children in a climate so anti-Catholic.

“We were invoking the patronage of San Pedro and his brother martyrs so that there might be a respectful, prayerful and reflective dialogue among immigration issues, not just by politicians but including the faithful.”

For pilgrimage stops and dates, call (203) 752-4000 or go to website kofc.org/relics on the Internet.

Joseph Pronechen is based in

Trumbull, Connecticut.

Information

For a CD audio drama, coloring book, or child’s trading card of the Knights of Columbus Martyrs:

www.GloryStories.net