Viva el Cristo Rey!

It is 4:15 AM on Saturday morning.  I have been awake for over an hour.  I often wake in the middle of night but can usually coax myself back to sleep for another few hours.  Not this time. Last night, Sheila and I had dinner in the neighborhood and then did something we haven't done for a long time.  We went to a movie.  For the most part, Hollywood has quit producing anything I want to see.  So called stars like Adam Sandler and Will Ferrel give me a major pain in the *ss and I would pay NOT to see them ever again.  Most so called movies of late are so infantile, so out of touch with reality and so laced with PC propaganda that they are an insult. Too often, they mistake video game like special effects for drama, pornography for art and tired political cliche's for ideas. They are little movies made by little people with little minds.

This movie is different.  Based upon actual events in Mexico during the 1920's and 1930's, the dialogue is thoughtful and at times inspiring, the cinematography lush and the acting superb.  Aside from Andy Garcia, Eva Longoria and Peter O'Toole, the rest of the actors are Mexicans we anglos have never heard of.  But, taken together, this is one of the the best movies ever made and certainly one you will never forget.

The facts this movie is based upon are undeniable.  The President of Mexico at the time of these events was a communist who ruled by revolution.  He brutally suppressed the church.  There was an uprising by Christians.  America intervened to protect its oil interests but not the people of  Mexico and the compromise agreement they brokered did not end the persecution.  And to America's eternal shame, we apparently sold the regime airplanes that were used against the Cristero soldiers.  Some reports allege that the US military actually provided air support against the Cristeros.  Here are some photos from the real historical events:

 

So, what is the lesson to be learned from the sacrifice of our long dead Christian brothers to the South?  There are certain historical facts that recur with mathematical certainty.  When the secular left gains sufficient political power, it will do everything in its power to eradicate the influence of Christianity be it Catholic or Evangelical because they cannot coexist peacefully.  The hollowness and utter absurdity of the secular left's ideology is first exposed and then condemned by free Christian thought.  Consequently, the only way the secular left can maintain power is to eradicate religious freedom.  This eradication of religious freedom inevitably involves the use of force.  Persecution and bloodshed inevitably follow.  History has proven this time and again in dozens of little known wars in Latin America, all over Eastern Europe during the Cold War and in especially in Russia where the "official" church was an arm of the KGB. And, if this is the factual lesson, what is the moral application of it?  I will let a clip from the movie answer: