PRO JUÁREZ, MIGUEL AGUSTÍN, BL.

Mexican Jesuit martyr; b. Guadalupe, Jan. 13, 1891;d. Mexico City, Nov. 23, 1927. The son of Miguel Pro and Josefa Juárez, a well-to-do, socially prominent couple, as a child, Pro was noted for his open and sympathetic nature and his firm piety. He entered the Jesuit novitiate in El Llano, Michoacán in 1911 and devoted himself fervently to the religious life, believing "that God wanted him among His saints." Because of the religious persecutions under President Carranza, he studied in Los Gatos, Calif. (1914–1915). He was then sent to Spain, where he stayed until 1924 except for the years (1919–22) during which he taught in Granada, Nicaragua, a task that proved very difficult because of his ill health. In 1924 he went to Enghien, Belgium, for special studies in sociology and was ordained there in 1925. He then became gravely ill. In 1926 he returned to Mexico City where public worship had ceased because of the persecutions of President Calles. Pro undertook so many religious duties that they would have exhausted even a well man. He was seized by the police on Nov. 13, 1927 and executed with his brother Humberto ten days later amid much public uproar. Officially, he had been accused of plotting against General Obregón, but his innocence was clearly proved. Father Pro was beatified by Pope John Paul II on Sept. 25, 1988.

Feast: Nov. 23.

Bibliography: a. dragon, Vida intima del Padre Pro, tr. r. martÍnez del campo, 3d ed. (Mexico City 1961). r. martÍnez del campo, La prueba del Padre Pro y el proceso de su beatificación (Mexico City 1952). f. royer, Padre Pro (New York 1954). j. cardoso, Los mártires Mexicanos (Mexico City 1953) 363–389. daughters of st. paul, God's Secret Agent (Boston 1967). g. f. muller, With Life and Laughter (Notre Dame, Ind. 1969; rep. Boston 1996). r. ramÍrez t., Miguel Agustín Pro (Mexico 1976). l. butera v., Un martir alegre (Mexico City 1987). j. m. garcÍa de alba, Beatificación del P. Miguel Agustín Pro S.J. (Guadalajara, Mexico 1988). a. ball, Blessed Miguel Pro: Twentieth-Century Mexican Martyr (San Francisco 1996). j. escalada, Miguel Agustine Pro: Alter Christus (Mexico 1999). j. n. tylenda, Jesuit Saints and Martyrs (Chicago 1984).

[r. torres]