Bl. Miguel Agustín Pro, S.J.

The Clandestine Priest

Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez was born on January 13, 1891, in Guadalupe, Zacatecas, Mexico, the third of eleven children in a deeply Catholic, well-to-do family. From a young age he displayed a cheerful, playful, and profoundly devout character. In 1911, at the age of twenty, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at El Llano, Michoacán. But the Mexican Revolution was already shaking the nation. In 1914, the Jesuits were expelled from Mexico. Miguel was sent into exile, first to Los Gatos, California, then to Granada, Nicaragua, and finally to Enghien, Belgium, where he completed his studies in philosophy and theology.

Despite a severe stomach illness that required three surgeries, Miguel was ordained a priest on August 31, 1925, in Belgium. In July 1926, he returned to Mexico City just as the Calles Law, which banned public worship, closed churches, and expelled foreign clergy, took effect. What he found was a persecuted Church and a people starving for the sacraments. With no parish and no church building, Father Pro became a clandestine priest. He celebrated Mass in private homes before dawn, heard confessions in public parks, and carried communion to the sick disguised as a mechanic, a beggar, a street sweeper, or a fashionable dandy. His wit, humor, and daring made him a living legend among Mexican Catholics.

On November 13, 1927, a car that had previously belonged to one of Miguel’s brothers was used in a failed assassination attempt against former president Álvaro Obregón. Without a shred of evidence linking him to the plot, President Plutarco Elías Calles ordered Miguel and his brothers arrested. On November 23, 1927, without trial or legal process, Father Pro was led before a firing squad in the courtyard of the Police Inspectorate. He refused a blindfold, held a crucifix in one hand and a rosary in the other, spread his arms in the form of a cross, and cried out: "¡Viva Cristo Rey!" The photographs of his execution, ordered by Calles to intimidate Catholics, had the opposite effect: they galvanized the resistance and turned Father Pro into a martyr.

More than 40,000 people attended his funeral in defiance of the government. In 1988, Pope John Paul II declared him Blessed, recognizing his heroic witness of faith under persecution. His cause for canonization remains active; a second verified miracle is needed for his declaration as a saint.

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