José Anacleto González Flores was born in Tepatitlán (Jalisco, Mexico) on July 13, 1888, in an environment of extreme poverty. In 1908, he entered the auxiliary seminary of San Juan de los Lagos; he quickly made great strides in the sciences. When he realized that his vocation was not the ministerial priesthood, he enrolled in the Free School of Law. A remarkable educator, orator, catechist, and Christian social leader, he became a lay champion of the Catholics of Guadalajara.
Anacleto had a deep spiritual life which he shared with his spiritual director, the archbishop of Guadalajara. Every day he started his day with Mass and Holy Communion. Every morning, he spent time in prayer and meditation and, as a Third Order Franciscan, faithfully kept the rule of life and generously prayed as required.
Possessing a vast culture, he wrote several books imbued with Christian spirit, as well as hundreds of newspaper articles. In October 1922, he married María Concepción Guerrero. Anacleto was a model husband and a responsible father to his two children.
Very loyal to his prelate, the Servant of God Francisco Orozco y Jiménez, he advocated peaceful and civilized resistance to the State’s attacks against the Church among Catholics. The Church had been suffering persecution in Mexico ever since the country’s independence. However, the persecution intensified when Elías Plutarco Calles became President. On July 2, 1926, the “Calles Law” attacking the Church’s freedom was enforced. Its objective was to eliminate the Catholic Church.
Atrocities and assassinations began to spread. When peaceful measures were exhausted, many Mexicans offered their own lives in holocaust and took up arms to defend their faith with the cry of “Long live Christ the King! Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe!” This response was called the Cristero War. Anacleto fought in this war by using words in favour of religious freedom.
At the end of 1926, after having exhausted all available legal and civic resources, and faced with the imminent organization of active resistance by Catholics, Anacleto supported, with his prestige, his words, and his life, the projects of the National League for the Defense of Religious Freedom. The federal government wanted to get rid of him, but Anacleto was willing to shed his blood for love of Christ and His Church, so unjustly persecuted.
In the early morning of April 1, 1927, he was arrested at the home of the Vargas González family and taken to the Colorado barracks, where he was subjected to cruel torture. Among other things, they demanded he reveal the whereabouts of the Archbishop of Guadalajara: “I don’t know, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you”, he replied. The torturers, under the orders of Division General Jesús María Ferreira, head of military operations in Jalisco, dislocated his limbs, lifted the soles of his feet, and, with blows, dislocated one of his arms.
Before dying, he said to Ferreira, “I forgive you from the bottom of my heart. We will soon meet before the divine tribunal. The same judge who will judge me will be your judge, and then you will have in me an intercessor with God.” The soldier ordered that he be pierced with the edge of a fixed bayonet. His death plunged the people of Guadalajara into mourning.
Pope Benedict XVI approved his beatification on Nov. 15, 2005. In 2019, Anacleto González Flores was named patron saint of the Mexican laity.
The liturgical memorial – April 1.
Sources:
https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20051120_anacleto-gonzalez_sp.html
https://www.franciscanpenancelibrary.com/2013-may-newsletter