Saint Toribio Romo González

He was born on April 16, 1900, at Santa Ana de Guadalupe, a hamlet in the parish of Jalostotitlán in the highlands of Jalisco, in what is now the Diocese of San Juan de los Lagos. ¹³⁵ Desde la Fe, the magazine of the Archdiocese of Mexico, says he entered the seminary of San Juan de los Lagos at eleven. ⁵ He had to ask the Holy See for a dispensation of age before ordination, and was ordained a priest on December 23, 1922. ⁴⁵

Desde la Fe lists his first postings as Sayula, Tuxpan, Yahualica and Cuquío and the ranches around them. ⁵ He was then sent to Tequila, which the Archdiocese of Guadalajara says was no welcome assignment: the Cristero war was at its height, and Tequila was one of the places where the civil and military authorities hunted priests hardest. ⁴ The Holy See's biography calls him vicar with the duties of parish priest there. ¹ By his own diary, Desde la Fe says, he had to flee to the hills and ravines at least ten times. ⁵

He hid in an abandoned tequila distillery near the ranch of Agua Caliente and went on saying Mass there. ⁴ The Holy See biography describes a priest of tender heart and constant prayer, devoted to the Eucharist, who often prayed, in words translated here, "Lord, do not let me go a single day of my life without saying Mass, without embracing you in Communion." ¹ Chicago Catholic remembers him for his emphasis on catechesis and the Eucharist. ⁷

A few days before his death, the Guadalajara account says, he gave First Communion to twenty children he had prepared himself and asked them to pray for the peace of the Church. ⁴ Holding the Host in trembling hands, he said aloud, "Will you accept my blood, Lord?", could not go on for tears, and then repeated it: "And will you accept my blood, Lord, which I offer you for the peace of the Church?" ¹⁴

On Thursday, February 23, 1928, he said Mass with his brother, Father Román, went to confession to him and asked his blessing, and left him a letter that was not to be opened until he was told. ⁴ The next day he set the parish books in order. He worked all Friday, stopping in the afternoon for the Rosary and the Divine Office, and finished the records of marriages and baptisms in the early hours of Saturday. ¹⁴

At four in the morning by the Guadalajara account, or five by the Holy See's, he thought of saying Mass first, then decided to sleep a little so as to say it better. ¹⁴ The Holy See places this at Aguascalientes, "a place near Tequila" that served as his refuge; the Guadalajara account at the ranch of Agua Caliente, in the rooms of the estate's manager, León Aguirre. ¹⁴ Soon afterward a troop of federal soldiers and agraristas came in; the Guadalajara account says an informer had told them where he was, and that they surrounded the place and climbed the walls. ¹⁴

One of them, in the Guadalajara account, pulled back the arm that covered his face, and both sources give the shout, translated here: "That's the priest, kill him!" ¹⁴ The Guadalajara account says he woke and managed only "Yes, I am, but don't kill me..." before they fired. ⁴ Wounded, he took a few steps, and a second volley, in the back according to the Holy See, brought him down. ¹⁴

His sister María, whom the family called Quica, ran to him and held him. The Guadalajara account gives her words as "Courage, Father Toribio... Merciful Jesus, receive him! Long live Christ the King!" ⁴ The soldiers stripped his body, and María was taken prisoner and marched barefoot to a cell. ⁴ When Father Román opened the letter, it asked him to look after their elderly parents and their sister Quica, "who has been a true mother to us." ⁴

L'Osservatore Romano's list of the 25 dates his death to February 25, 1928, and says all of them were killed without trial. ³ Twenty years later his remains were brought home to the chapel he had built, at Jalostotitlán according to the Guadalajara account; CNS says they were brought back to Santa Ana, where pilgrims now crowd the small sanctuary in which he said his first Mass. ⁴⁶

He was beatified on November 22, 1992, and canonized by John Paul II on May 21, 2000, with the 24 others led by Cristóbal Magallanes. ⁵⁹ The pope did not name him in the homily. ² He said the 25 were mostly diocesan priests, with three laymen, who did not stop exercising their ministry when the persecution grew worse, and who "all freely and calmly accepted martyrdom as a witness to their faith, explicitly forgiving their persecutors." ² Their story together is told on this site under Saint Cristóbal Magallanes and Companions. ³⁹

Catholic News Service, reporting from Santa Ana in 2012, called him the patron saint of migrants and the most famous of the 25. ⁶ It said stories of his helping migrants began to surface in the 1970s, told by people from the Los Altos region and by others on their way north, and that pilgrims to his shrine say he makes them invisible to border agents or simply appears to them. ⁶ He is known colloquially, it reports, as "Santo Pollero", after the smugglers migrants pay to take them across. ⁶ An archdiocesan spokesman called his fame "a phenomenon that no one expected." ⁶

Desde la Fe is blunter. The Church never proclaimed him patron of migrants, it says, and nothing in his biography connects him with migration; the migrants on their way to the northern border chose him themselves, and nobody knows why. ⁵ It notes a parish named for him in Tijuana, at the country's busiest crossing, and a chapel near the border in Mexicali, and says he was the first of the 25 to be taken up by popular piety. ⁵

The devotion has crossed the border too. CNS records a diocesan shrine dedicated to him in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2008. ⁶ In January 2022 Chicago Catholic reported that Our Lady of the Mount parish in Cicero, Illinois, had become the permanent home of his relics, and said he is beloved by immigrants coming to the United States from Mexico; the same report reproduces a CNS photograph of his holy cards among items Border Patrol agents had taken from people caught crossing. ⁷

He is popularly known as the patron saint of migrants, especially those crossing from Mexico into the United States. ⁶⁷ Desde la Fe stresses that this is a title given by popular piety, not by any act of the Church. ⁵

He is celebrated with Cristóbal Magallanes and his companions on May 21. ⁸⁹ In the calendar of the dioceses of the United States the day is an optional memorial, "Saint Christopher Magallanes, Priest, and Companions, Martyrs". ¹⁰ Desde la Fe says the Church celebrates him on February 25, the day he died. ⁵ CNS, reporting from Santa Ana, mentioned a third date, "May 25, too, the feast of St. Toribio", which none of the other sources gives. ⁶

He asked at a First Communion whether God would accept his blood, and wept saying it. ⁴ Days later he spent his last full day on parish registers, the dullest work a pastor has, and went to bed tired. ¹⁴

He was not killed in the middle of a sermon. He was shot half-asleep, after saying "don't kill me", and died with his sister holding him. ⁴ The sources record his fear along with his faith, and do not make the death more heroic than it was.

The people who pray to him most are a long way from Tequila, and many of them are making a dangerous journey of their own. ⁶⁷ As Desde la Fe says, nothing in his biography explains it. ⁵ They chose him anyway.