José de León Toral hiked up Chiquihuite Hill near the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City in June 1928. He placed a newspaper against a ridge and stepped back fifteen paces. Aiming the revolver borrowed from a friend from his prayer circle, he shot six bullets. Not one hit the newspaper. He reloaded, took five steps forward, and shot again: nothing. He got closer still. Five paces from the paper, he emptied the revolver. All shots missed.1 The young Catholic activist who killed revolutionary caudillo Álvaro Obregón in a Mexico City restaurant a week later could not have hit the side of a barn. Religious militancy was not new. The Cristero Rebellion had been roiling the countryside since the enforcement of anticlerical laws began two years before. But fighting was far from the urban, middle-class world of a church mouse like José. Even those close to him wondered, why did he kill Obregón?