Celebrating the American-born Martyr

Today is the Feast Day of Blessed Fr. Stanley Francis Rother (1935–1981), an American Catholic priest from Oklahoma who was murdered in Guatemala in 1981. The new altar at Corpus Christi Cathedral holds a relic of this first American-born martyr.
 
Stanley Rother was born on March 27, 1935, in Okarche, one of four children of Franz Rother and Gertrude Smith, who farmed near that Oklahoma town. Rother was adept at farm work but felt called to become a priest after completing high school at Holy Trinity School. He studied at Saint John Seminary and then at Assumption Seminary in San Antonio, Texas. After almost six years, seminary staff advised him to withdraw because of academic struggles, particularly in Latin. After consulting Bishop Victor Reed of Oklahoma City, Rother attended Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he graduated in 1963.
 
He was ordained to theBlessed Stanley Rother, painting by Jim Effler/The Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine priesthood on May 25, 1963, in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma and held several parish assignments. In 1968, at his request, his Archbishop assigned him to the diocese’s mission among the Tz'utujil people in the rural highlands of southwest Guatemala.
 
To better connect with his congregation, he learned Spanish and the Tz’utujil language, which was an unwritten Mayan language first recorded by the missionary Ramón Carlín. He served in Santiago Atitlán from 1968 until his death.
 
He supported a radio station on the mission property that aired daily lessons in language and mathematics. In 1973, he wrote in a letter: “I am now preaching in Tz'utuhil.” During that period, he translated the New Testament into Tz'utujil. In the late 1960s, Rother founded a small hospital in Panabaj, known as the “Hospitalito.”
 In the last year of his life, Rother saw the radio station on the mission’s property destroyed and its director murdered. Some of his catechists and parishioners would disappear and later be found dead, their bodies showing signs of beating and torture; Rother knew all this upon returning to Guatemala in May 1981. He wrote, “This is one of the reasons I have for staying in the face of physical harm: The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger.” On the morning of July 28, 1981, just after midnight, gunmen broke into Rother’s rectory and shot him.
 
On December 1, 2016, Pope Francis confirmed that Rother had died a martyr, murdered for his faith. Rother was beatified on September 23, 2017, in Oklahoma City. He is the first U.S.-born priest and martyr to be beatified by the Catholic Church.
 
A shrine dedicated to him on the south side of Oklahoma City was inaugurated in 2023. It serves as a church, a museum, and a pilgrimage site.