Stanley Rother

Fr. Stanley Francis Rother (27 March, 1935 - 28 July, 1981) was a Catholic priest and missionary to Guatemala. He was murdered by a death squad, believed to be made up of right-wing extremists and elements of the Guatemalan Army, on 28 July, 1981.

Ordination and early career

Fr. Rother attended the seminary at Mount St. Mary's University, graduating in 1963, and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Oklahoma City - Tulsa (now the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City) on 25 May, 1963 by Bishop Victor Reed. He served as an associate pastor in various parishes around Oklahoma before being assigned to the mission of Santiago Atitlán, in the rural highlands of southwest Guatemala, in 1968.

Mission work in Guatemala

He served in Santiago Atitlán for 13 years. During that time, in addition to his pastoral duties, he translated the New Testament into the Tzutuhil language and began the regular celebration of the liturgy in that same tongue. Fr. Rother also founded a small hospital to serve the community, which was located in Panabaj. Unfortunately, the "Hospitalito" and the whole neighborhood of Panabaj were buried in the mudslides that followed Hurricane Stan in October of 2005. The Hospitalito is in the process of being re-opened.

Death threat and murder

In early 1981 he was warned that his name was on a death list and that he should leave Guatemala. He returned to Oklahoma in January of that year, but asked permission to return. He went back to Santiago Atitlán in April, and on the morning of July 28, gunmen broke into the rectory of his church and shot him twice in the head after a brief struggle. He was one of 10 priests murdered in Guatemala that year.

Burial and veneration

Fr. Rother was flown back to Oklahoma City and was buried in his home town of Okarche, Oklahoma. At the request of his Guatemalan parishioners, however, his heart was interred beneath the floor of the parish church in Santiago Atitlán.

Since his death, Archbishop Eusebius J. Beltran and many other Catholics in Oklahoma and Guatemala consider Fr. Rother to be a martyr for the faith, and have petitioned the Catholic Church to designate Fr. Rother as "fit for veneration" (a step on the path to sainthood). [http://www.catharchdioceseokc.org/history/beltran_e.htm]

ee also

* Roman Catholic Church
* Archdiocese of Oklahoma City
* Martyrdom
* Veneration
* Canonization
* Saint

External links

* [http://www.catharchdioceseokc.org/history/rotherindex.htm The Father Rother Index at the web page of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City]
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006EJPI8 Book: "The Shepherd Cannot Run: The Letters of Stanley Rother"]
* [http://www.puebloapueblo.org Pueblo a Pueblo & Hospitalito Atitlán]
* [http://www.catharchdioceseokc.org/history/salatkahomily.htm Homily (Eulogy) on Father Rother]
* [http://www.catharchdioceseokc.org/history/beltran_e.htm Oklahoma City Archbishop asks Catholics to pray for the canonization of Father Rother.]
* [http://www.catharchdioceseokc.org/history/Murder.htm "Father Stanley Rother: Oklahoma missionary murdered in Guatemala"] news article from the Sooner Catholic, 2 August, 1981
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1556435878 Book: "Stealing Benefacio's Roses: A Mayan Epic"]