Review of Martyrs in Mexico: A Mormon Story of Revolution and Redemption

Volume 58:2 (2019) - While not described as such, Martyrs in Mexico is a continuation of the story that author F. LaMond Tullis gave us in Mormons in Mexico, a classic work, first published in 1987, detailing the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the country just south of the United States. Martyrs in Mexico, however, has a narrower scope, focusing on one community—San Marcos, Hidalgo—from which would come well-known individuals of the Church in Mexico. Why did Tullis choose San Marcos? The obvious answer is that this community holds an important place in Church lore. San Marcos was the place of one of the Church’s most remembered (though not necessarily among American Saints) martyrdoms: that of Rafael Monroy and Vicente Morales, who were killed by a firing squad of Mexican revolutionaries for, the story goes, refusing to renounce their faith. The value of Martyrs in Mexico is that it tells more than has been told before about Rafael Monroy’s life and family and how they became a dynastic family in the Church in Mexico. It also tells us more about Vicente Morales, who has been the forgotten man in this story of martyrdom.