After the Chapultepec attack, the quiet ACJM activist José de León Toral asked himself, “How could someone who kills be a martyr?”1 Posed as a criticism of Luis Segura, who had led the attack, the question became a riddle that León Toral struggled to resolve in the weeks following the executions. Despairing at the state of the Catholic movement, less than a year after the announcement of the so-called Calles Law, he pondered why actions thus far had failed. The sorrowful spectacle should have reminded Catholics that the church’s pain was their own. As parishioners walked past shuttered parishes, women crossing their chests and men doffing their hats, did they not understand that the government had forced the closures? That the only way to reopen the churches was to combat the government? The everyday privations urged by the boycott had sought to make palpable the nation’s spiritual anguish. The resulting asceticism should have pushed back the anticlerical wave. But these collective actions had fallen short. Catholics remained fearful or indifferent. Instead of confronting the nation’s spiritual crisis, they went to movies and dance halls. Lack of devotion, León Toral concluded, had betrayed the Ajusco adventure, the Celaya trip, the bombings, and other actions by Mexico City militants. The Chapultepec attack was different. Poor planning, imprudence, and perhaps cowardice had foiled the assault. Still, indignation at the executions and the somber celebrations at the burials had sent thousands into the streets. This mass exuberance, coupled with militants’ failures, pointed León Toral toward a simple truth. Most Catholics, devout as they may have been, celebrated martyrdom but were afraid of death. Only the willingness to die, the ultimate manifestation of love for Christ, could redeem the nation and bring on the Kingdom of Christ. Months of quiet deliberation made him understand that he had to kill Obregón.