20th century
Feast: November 23
He celebrated Mass in disguise — dressed as a beggar, a mechanic, a street sweeper — and when they finally stood him in front of a firing squad, he spread his arms like a cross and shouted, ‘Viva Cristo Rey!’
Miguel Pro was the kind of Jesuit who would have been good at anything. He was funny, resourceful, a gifted mimic, and utterly fearless. When President Calles outlawed the Catholic Church in Mexico in 1926, closing churches and hunting priests, Pro went underground. He celebrated Mass in private homes, garages, and basements. He distributed Communion to hundreds of people a week. He heard confessions in the back seats of cars. He moved through Mexico City in disguises — sometimes a businessman in a suit, sometimes a beggar, sometimes a policeman, sometimes a mechanic covered in grease. He had a gift for comedy that kept him alive; guards never suspected the grinning man with the easy laugh. He also ran an underground network distributing food to the poor who were suffering under the anti-Catholic regime. In November 1927, Pro was arrested after a false accusation linking him to an assassination attempt on a former president. Calles ordered his execution without trial — and, in a spectacular miscalculation, invited photographers to document it as propaganda. The photos showed Pro walking calmly to the wall, kneeling to pray, kissing his rosary, standing up, spreading his arms in the shape of a cross, and shouting ‘Viva Cristo Rey!’ before the bullets hit. The images, meant to intimidate, instead became icons of the Cristero resistance.