Centennial moment: Archbishop Noll, OSV and the Cristero War

With the recently released film "For Greater Glory" earning accolades (see OSV's story about it from the May 27 issue), many U.S. Catholics are learning about the persecution of the Mexican Church during the Cristero War.

Back in the 1920s and '30s, the war was of grave concern to Our Sunday Visitor and its founder, Archbishop John F. Noll. As biographer Ann Ball pointed out in her book "Champion of the Church," then-Bishop Noll wrote about the Mexican government's persecution of the Church regularly in the pages of Our Sunday Visitor and worked with the Knights of Columbus and the Extension Society to inform American readers of the atrocities occurring south of the border.

Bishop Noll also established a group called Friends of Catholic Mexico to publicize the persecution, and, as a member of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (precursor to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops), he helped to draft the written position of American bishops in pushing the president of the United States for action to end the Cristero War.

Cover of a Friends of Catholic Mexico
booklet.