St. Mateo Correa Magallanes

Feastday: May 21
Birth: 1866
Death: 1927
Beatified: November 22, 1992 by Pope John Paul II
Canonized: May 21, 2000 by Pope John Paul II

As a parish priest, Father Mateo Correa Magallanes, of Tepechitlan, Mexico, administered First Holy Communion to a youth who years later was to become a martyr, Blessed Miguel Pro. As it happened, Father Correa himself was to die for the faith in the same year as his communicant. In 1927, during the Mexican government's continuing persecution of the Catholic Church, Father Correa was arrested by soldiers as he was bringing Viaticum to an invalid. Immediately the priest consumed the Host he was carrying to save it from desecration. After spending several days in custody, Father Correa was asked by a military officer, General Eulogio Ortiz, to hear the confessions of some imprisoned members of an insurgency movement, the Cristeros. The devoted priest did not decline this opportunity to administer the sacrament. But afterward, General Ortiz demanded of Father Correa, under pain of death, that he reveal the contents of the confessions. Father Correa refused, answering, "But don't you know, general, that a priest must guard the secret of confession? I am ready to die." He was shot to death on February 6, 1927.

Mateo Correa Magallanes (also known as Mateo Correa, Fr. Correa; July 23, 1866 – February 6, 1927) was a Knight of Columbus, of Council 2140.

Correa was born at Tepechitlán, Zacatecas, Mexico. He attended the seminary at Zacatecas on a scholarship, in 1881. He was ordained as priest in 1893 at the age of 27. As a young priest, he gave first communion to Miguel Pro who also became a priest and was later martyred. Correa was assigned as a parish priest to Concepción del Oro in 1898, and then to Colotlán in 1908. Following the government's repression of the Catholic Church in 1910, he went into hiding. He was assigned to Valparaíso in 1926.

Martyrdom

In 1927, during the government's continuing persecution of the church, Correa was arrested by soldiers as he was bringing Viaticum to a woman invalid. Accused of being part of the armed Cristero defense, he was jailed in Zacatecas, and then in Durango. On February 5, 1927, Correa was asked by General Eulogio Ortiz, to hear the confessions of some imprisoned members of the Cristeros, an uprising of Catholic men who decided to fight back against the persecution of the church led by Mexico's president Plutarco Elias Calles. Correa agreed to administer the Sacrament of Confession to these prisoners, but afterward Ortiz demanded to know what the condemned prisoners had confessed. Correa refused. Ortiz then pointed a gun at Correa's head and threatened him with immediate death. Correa continued to refuse, and at dawn on February 6, 1927, he was taken to the cemetery on the outskirts of Durango and shot through the head.