Letter: Movie review wrong about Cristeros

In reading Rafer Guzman's review of "For Greater Glory" ["Out for blood, in the name of religion," Act 2, June 2], I was surprised to see such a blatantly prejudiced review of this movie. The claim that it "unabashedly romanticizes religious war" misrepresents it in two ways.

First, the Cristeros War was not a war between religious groups. It was a war fought by those who value the basic human right to freedom of religion, including freedom of worship, against a corrupt, radically secularist regime that slaughtered men, women and children, and deprived priests and others in the church of their rights, freedom and, in many cases, their lives.

Second, the "morbid scenes of martyrdom" are part of the history of the struggle in Mexico, and are not included for us to be "cherishing more dearly the violence done to martyrs."

Reality may be hard for the reviewer to take, but a leftist anti-Catholic government under Mexican President Plutarco Calles, did brutalize, torture and kill Mexican priests and laity in the 1920s, and it was met by resistance from men and women from all parts of Mexican society, who bravely and unselfishly offered their lives for the cause.

Those who hate religion are prepared to go to extremes to suppress it, only to be surprised by the extent to which the faithful will go to defend and preserve it. I am apparently one of "the faithful for whom this movie was intended," so my disagreeing should not surprise the reviewer.

The Rev. Henry W. Reid, Selden

Editor's note: The writer is the parochial vicar of the St. Margaret of Scotland Parish.