In recent decades, Cristiada scholarship has expanded to explore how Mexicans, both willingly and unwillingly, traveled the world to further their struggle for Christ’s kingdom on Earth. This research has shed light on how Cristeros thought and acted on a global scale. However, less attention has been paid to how the broader Catholic world understood the Cristiada beyond the narrative shaped by the Cristeros themselves. For politically engaged Catholics, the Mexican conflict symbolized a broader ideological struggle, particularly in light of the rising influence of the United States and Soviet Union. I argue that, between the Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921) and the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the Cristiada served as a key reference point for Catholics worldwide who viewed it as evidence of the threat posed by “Judeo-Bolshevism” to their faith. This presentation examines the relationship between global Cristero activism and the neo-colonial discourse through which other Catholics interpreted the conflict. By doing so, it reframes the Cristiada’s global significance as both rooted in and ultimately transcending the intentions and control of the Cristeros themselves. The Mexican religious conflict became a symbol through which Catholics around the world confronted an imagined global conspiracy to impose secularism via state power. I aim to encourage scholars of the Cristiada to expand their analysis to consider the event and the broader Church-State struggle within a global context—one that often surpassed the discursive frameworks employed by the Cristeros in and outside of Mexico.
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