Blessed Stanley Rother, Missionary, Martyr

Stanley Rother was born in Okarchee, Oklahoma the oldest of four children to a family of Catholic German farmers. He grew up learning the ways of farming, playing sports, and serving Mass. He entered seminary but struggled with some theology classes and Latin. The seminary eventually sent him home saying he wasn't priest material. Fortunately his bishop and Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland wanted to give him another chance. He graduated and was ordained a priest for Oklahoma City-Tulsa in 1963. In 1968 he requested to be a missionary in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala where the Diocese had a mission. He went and learned both Spanish and the difficult Tzutujil language of the small community of native peasants among whom he served as a missionary. He poured himself into the work, eventually translating the Mass and even the New Testament into Tzutujil. He also worked to bring modern farming techniques to the community and taught math along with language and catechetical lessons. His efforts, however, made him a target of both the government and left-wing militant groups who were fighting a bloody civil war that lasted decades. A number of his parishioners were victims of the Civil War as they refused to cooperate with either side of the fight. Father Rother wrote that "the shepherd doesn't flee at the first sign of danger." Eventually he was found to be number 8 on a death list, so his bishop ordered him to return to Oklahoma. He spent a few months at his family farm, but eventually requested permission to return to Santiago Atitlan to be with his people for Easter. He returned in April 1981, but on July 28, 1981 he was gunned down in the rectory in the middle of the night. He was regarded as a martyr and a great man from immediately after his death. His body was returned to Oklahoma, but his heart was returned to Santiago Atitlan where it remains. His cause for canonization opened in 2010, and he was beatified in a large outdoor Mass in Oklahoma City in 2017. A large shrine dedicated to Blessed Stanley Rother opened in 2023 in Oklahoma City.