Miguel received permission from his superiors to return to Mexico incognito and to carry on his ministry undercover. He slipped into Mexico City and immediately began celebrating Mass and distributing the sacraments – often under imminent threat of discovery by a police force charged with the task of ferreting out hidden pockets of Catholicism.
Miguel had many narrow escapes. Once, after celebrating Mass in a home, he received just enough warning to be able to slip out a side door before the police surrounded the place. With characteristic bravado, Pro changed into a police inspector’s uniform (one of the many disguises he made use of while eluding authorities) and went back to the very house where the police were busy hunting for him. Swaggering up to the policeman in charge, Pro demanded to know why they hadn’t yet succeeded in capturing "that rascal Pro". None the wiser, the abashed officer promised to redouble the search efforts.
Another time, Pro was in a taxi being pursued through the streets of Mexico City by several police cars. Ordering the driver to slow down as he rounded a corner, Pro rolled out of the car, lit a cigar, and began strolling arm in arm with an attractive (and startled) young woman. When the police roared by, in hot pursuit of the now Pro-less taxi, they paid no attention to the romantic young couple on the sidewalk.
He became known throughout the city as the undercover priest who would show up in the middle of the night, dressed as a beggar or a street sweeper, to baptize infants, hear confessions, distribute Communion, or perform marriages. Several times, disguised as a policeman, he slipped unnoticed into the police headquarters itself to bring the sacraments to Catholic prisoners before their executions. Using clandestine meeting places, a wardrobe of disguises (including policeman, chauffeur, garage mechanic, farm laborer, and playboy), and coded messages to the underground Catholics who received his notes signed "Cocol," Pro carried on his priestly work for the Mexican faithful under his care.
In Testimony, at the process of his Beatification, it was reported that at the Consecration of the Mass he celebrated on the day before he was arrested, a brilliant light surrounded his entire body and his face and hands and vestments shown so brightly that those attending Mass could not look directly at him. Then he levitated.
The next day he was caught. A car previously owned by his brother had been used in an assassination attempt on General Obregon. The license plate was traced to Pro’s brother, and this led to an informant telling the police where the Pro brothers, who knew nothing about the plot, were lodging. They were put in jail and held without trial for ten days while the government trumped up charges falsely implicating Pro in the assassination attempt. On November 13, 1927 President Calles ordered Pro to be executed, ostensibly for his role in the assassination plot, but in reality for his defiance of the laws banning Catholicism.
As Fr. Pro walked from his cell to the prison courtyard, he blessed the firing squad, and approached a bullet-scarred adobe wall. He knelt and prayed silently for a few moments. Refusing a blindfold, he stood, faced the firing squad, and with a crucifix in one hand and a rosary in the other, he held his arms outstretched in the form of a cross and in a loud clear voice he cried out, "May God have mercy on your soul! May God Bless you! Lord thou knowest that I am innocent! With all my heart I forgive my enemies"! As the soldiers lifted their rifles, he said with his dying breath, "Viva Cristo Rey!"...
The Mexican government, in one of the most foolish PR moves in the history of humanity, made sure a photograph was taken of his execution and widely distributed.
Blessed Miguel Pro, ora pro nobis.
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