Background
He was born in Totatiche, Jalisco, Mexico on July 30, 1869. He was son of Rafael Magallanes Romero and Clara Jara Sanchez, who were farmers.
He was born in Totatiche, Jalisco, Mexico on July 30, 1869. He was son of Rafael Magallanes Romero and Clara Jara Sanchez, who were farmers.
He worked as a shepherd in his youth and enrolled in the Conciliar Seminary of San José in Guadalajara at the age of 19. He was ordained at the age of 30 at the Santa Teresa Temple in Guadalajara in 1899 and served as chaplain of the School of Arts and Works of the Holy Spirit in Guadalajara. He was then designated as the parish priest for his home town of Totatiche, where he helped found schools and carpentry shops and assisted in planning for hydrological works, including the dam of Louisiana Candelaria.
He took special interest in the evangelization of the local indigenous Huichol people and was instrumental in the foundation of the mission in the indigenous town of Azqueltán.
When government decrees closed the seminary in Guadalajara in 1914, Magallanes offered to open a seminary in his parish. Magallanes wrote and preached against armed rebellion, but was falsely accused of promoting the Cristero Rebellion in the area.
Arrested on May 21, 1927, while en route to celebrate Mass at a farm, he gave away his few remaining possessions to his executioners, gave them absolution, and without a trial, he was killed four days later with Saint Agustín Caloca in Colotlán, Jalisco. José Pilar Quezada Valdés, who went on to become the first bishop of the Archdiocese of Acapulco.
French Magallanes was canonized by Pope John Paul II on May 21, 2000.
The concluding sequence of the movie Foreign Greater Glory (2012) says that the fictional character "Father Christopher" portrayed by actor Peter O"Toole was based on Saint Cristobal Magallanes Jara.