Punish one, teach a hundred. – Anonymous
(LifeSiteNews) — With his neck roped to a heavy branch on the eucalyptus tree, the priest’s corpse – on display – was to serve as a lesson to others.
Soldiers ordered photographers to snap shots of the dead cleric – with his head at an unnatural bend, clothing spattered with blood, and his bare toes resting gently, barely touching the dirt. Photos were to be published in the regime’s nationwide propaganda rags to spread fear, as per the Bolshevik way.
Such was the execution and cruel degradation of Father Gumersindo Sedano y Palencia, on September 7, 1927, during a time of great persecution against the Catholic Church in Mexico.
A member of the Colima clergy and chaplain to the Cristero War’s Liberation Movement in the Jalisco regions of Tuxpan and Tamazula de Gorgiano, Sedano had traveled to the town of Ciudad Guzman to pick up some supplies and to tend to some matters. An overnight trip, he received a warm welcome in a home that had also given refuge to five Cristero soldiers.
At the same time, local federal soldiers were looking for Cristero General Dionisio Eduardo Ochoa Santana (1900-27), a Cristiada leader who had slipped into town – accompanied by some of his soldiers – to meet with Javier Heredia, chief representative of the Special War Committee of the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty, the national organization acting as the brains behind the religious rebellion.
During the search for Ochoa, soldiers received a tip from a meddling old woman looking for financial reward. She had spotted the presence of a group of Cristeros at a certain residence, she confided, and happily rattled off the address and the whereabouts of those Christian rebels.
Following her lead, the next day, September 7, 1927, a truckload of federal soldiers arrived at the specified location and stormed inside the building. But there was no Ochoa. He had already snuck out of town, undetected, hours earlier, in the dark, presumably back to Cristero War headquarters in the hills of the Colima Volcano.
Undeterred, the troops rounded up Sedano along with the five Cristero soldiers, herded the six Catholics into a truck and headed for the barracks based in the Ciudad Guzman Train Station at the corner of what is currently known as Avenida Arquitecto Pedro Ramirez Vazquez and Calzada Madero y Carranza.
A certain Captain Urbina waited for them.
Along the route, Sedano held his rosary and prayed out loud, occasionally shouting exclamations and pious chants with great emotion that chafed his captors.
“Viva Cristo Rey! Viva Santa Maria de Guadalupe! Viva el Papa! Sacred Heart, you will reign! Mexico will always be yours!” he cried out.
The more he cheered, the more he irritated the soldiers, who attempted to silence him. But the more they tried, the louder he yelled.
When passing by Saint Joseph Cathedral, he called out to the patron saint of the church: “Saint Joseph, my Patriarch, to whom this church is dedicated, moments before dying for Christ, I greet you and invoke you. In a few moments, I will see you in Heaven!”
Attracting the attention of onlookers, he hollered to them: “I am a priest, and I am going to die for Christ. Long live Christ the King! Come, and see how Christians die!”
At the Ciudad Guzman train station, Captain Urbina walked out and greeted the arrivals, as the priest continued to pray aloud and holler exclamations.
“Shut up!” Urbina ordered.
“As long as I’m alive, I will not stop shouting,” the priest responded, adding, “Viva Cristo Rey!”
“Shut up, coward!” the enraged Urbina demanded.
“We Catholics are not cowards,” Sedano calmly answered. “And you yourselves have the proof. When they apprehended us, if these men with me didn’t fire, it’s because they didn’t have Mausers. Provide us with weapons, and you’ll have proof of the heroism of the Liberators. You are the cowards! You can kill us immediately; we are ready to die! Long live Christ the King!”
Enraged, Urbina drew his pistol and shot the priest, who collapsed in the back of the truck, murmuring, “Viva Cristo Rey, Viva Cristo Rey, Viva Cristo Rey,” as his five companions were also promptly executed.
With a rope tied around his neck, Sedano was hauled off the truck and dragged nearby to one of the thick, aged eucalyptus trees. Soldiers attempted to string him up, but the first branch snapped, and his body dropped to the ground. A second attempt also failed. Finally, on the third try, soldiers succeeded in hanging the priest, with his bare feet still touching the ground, as the federal troops laughed and jeered.
Also hanged post-mortem – the priest’s five companions, soaked in blood, with crucifixes hanging from their necks, dangling on the ends of their ropes, some from telephone poles, others from eucalyptus trees.
But the federal soldiers didn’t stop there. To create an even more gruesome public execution exhibition for photographers and to terrorize locals into submission, the corpses of five Callista soldiers killed in battle were hauled in, stripped of their uniforms and hanged beside their enemy combatants, to give the impression of 10 Cristeros.
General Jesus Maria Ferreira Knappe (1889-1938), federal chief of the Jalisco military zone, received a telegram that he immediately forwarded to Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles (born Francisco Plutarco Elias Campuzano, 1877-1945) about the executions:
“I am honored to inform you that at this moment I have just apprehended Father Sedano, having shot him with five other fanatics. The bodies are on display at the Ciudad Guzman Station.”
Dehumanized, the priest’s lifeless body remained tethered to his hanging tree. Around his knees, a large piece of paper with six scrawled words: “This is the priest Fr. Sedano,” to serve as a lesson. Indeed, it did.
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Miscellanea and facts came from the following:
“El Martir de Ciudad Guzman,” by Anonymous.
“Los Cristeros del Volcan de Colima: Escenas de le Luche por le Libertad Religiosa en Mexico 1926-1929, Tomo I,” by Spectator, pen name of Father Enrique de Jesus Ochoa.
“Mejico Cristero Historia de la ACJM 1925 a 1931,” by Antonio Rius Facius.
Martyrologist Theresa Marie Moreau is an award-winning reporter and the author of Martyrs in Red China; An Unbelievable Life: 29 Years in Laogai; Misery & Virtue; and Blood of the Martyrs: Trappist Monks in Communist China.
