Oklahoma Native Son, Priest and Martyr
1935-1981
Cause of Canonization for Father Stanley Francis Rother Will Officially Begin Oct. 5 With Mass and Commissioning of Committee at Holy Trinity Church in Okarche
By Ray Dyer
Editor of the Sooner Catholic
OKARCHE - Inside Okarche’s Holy Trinity Catholic Church, the same church where two days after his birth on March 27, 1935, Stanley Rother was baptized, Oklahoma Catholics will come together Oct. 5 incele- bration of the Holy Eucharist and to again pray for the Canonization of their beloved priest.On this night they will witness the formal beginning of the journey to sainthood as the Canonization Committee for the Cause of Sainthood for Revered Stanley Francis Rother is commissioned. Archbishop Beltran will commission the Canonization Committee. Deacon Norman Mejstrik, a parishioner at Saint Philip Neri Church in Midwest City, has been named to serve as coordinator for the committee. Carol Davito has been named to serve as assistant coordinator.
“It really is such an honor and a privilege in some small way to be connected with such a holy man as Father Rother, said Deacon Mejstrik. “Just learning about his life, his faith, the decisions he made and how he lived his life just has to profoundly influence me and influence all of us.”
Father Rother was shot to death late on the night of July 28, 1981 in the rectory at his church in Santiago, Atitlan Guatemala. The government of Guatemala was placing blame on the Catholic Church for unrest in the country. Many priests and religious lost their lives and thousands of civilians were kidnapped and killed during the years of statesponsored oppression. Even though Father Rother knew his life was in danger, he chose to remain with the people he had grown to love during the more than a dozen years he lived there.
Archbishop Beltran will head the Canonization Committee. He will be joined by Father Anthony B. Taylor, PhD who will serve as Episcopal Delegate; Father Edward J. Weisenburger, V.G., JCL who will serve as Promoter of Justice; Sister Kathryn Olsen, IHM, JCL and Anne Kirby, JCL who will serve as Notaries; Marcia Dubey, BS, will serve along with Kirby as Scribes; George Rigazzi, JCL, Cara Koenig, BA, and Loutitia Eason, JD will make up the Historical Commission; the Theological Commission will be comprised of Father Charles H. Schettler, JCD, STL; Right Reverend Lawrence Stasyszen, OSB, STD and Dr. Anne McGuire, PhD.
Because Father Rother was killed in Guatemala his Cause for Canonization normally should have been undertaken there. But because the Church there lacked the resources for such an effort, Archbishop Beltran requested a transfer of jurisdiction to the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. The Guatemala Conference of Bishops agreed to the Archbishop’s petition and the Congregation for the Cause of Saints gave this competence to the Archdiocese.
“This is a time of prayer that God will inspire His Church,” Archbishop Beltran said. While Father Rother has not been officially proclaimed a saint by the Church, Archbishop Beltran said he firmly believes “Father Rother died for the faith” and he considers him a martyr. “Thus we believe he is in heaven,” the archbishop said. “We hope and pray that the Church will someday officially proclaim that Father Rother is indeed a saint.”
According to Dr. Andrea Ambrosi, named by the Vatican as the Postular for this canonization case, three prerequisites must be met for a person to be named a martyr.
1) The person who committed the assassination must have had the motive of killing the victim only because of the victim’s faith.
2) The person who was killed must have accepted to die for the faith.
3) The death of the person must have been violent.
In a July 4 meeting with Dr. Ambrosi, several members of the commission made arguments that the circumstances surrounding Father Rother’s death would satisfy all three requirements.
By Sister Martha Mary McGaw, CSJ
Sooner Catholic
(Page 20, August 16, 1981)
Father Rother was born on March 27, 1935, the son of Franz and Gertrude Rother. He was reared on a farm near Okarche as a member of Holy Trinity Parish. He attended Holy Trinity School.
When he told his dad after high school that he wanted to be a priest his dad said, "Why didn't you take Latin instead of working so hard as a Future Farmer of America?" But he and Gertrude were glad that Stanley wanted to be a priest, and their daughter, too, now Sister Marita, wanted to become a Sister, though she and Stanley had not discussed their vocations with each other. "Religion was so much a part of our home and our lives that we didn't need to talk about it," Sister Marita said. God was central to our lives."
As a seminarian young Stanley was such a craftsman that in short order he was sacristan, groundskeeper, bookbinder, plumber, and gardener at Assumption Seminary in San Antonio. He was strong. He could do just about anything. He was an asset to the seminary. But he didn't have enough time for his studies, and he needed time. So after five and a half years he was told it would be better for him not to continue his studies for the priesthood.
That was a blow.
But Stanley and his father and Father Edmund Von Elm, the pastor at Okarche, went to see Bishop Victor Reed.
"Do you want to be a priest, Stanley?" Bishop Reed asked.
"Yes, but it's all over for me, isn't it?" Stanley said.
"No, it isn't," the bishop said. "It's not my smart priests that are my best priests, it's my good priests. We'll send you to another seminary."
Bishop Reed kept his word. He arranged for Stanley to go to Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and when it was time for ordination, the rector, Monsignor George D. Mulcahy, wrote to Bishop Reed on February 14, 1963: "Mr. Rother has made excellent progress at this seminary and should be a very valuable parish priest." Bishop Reed ordained him on May 25, 1963.
The first five years of his priesthood were spent at Saint William's, Durant; Saint Francis Xavier, Tulsa; Holy Family Cathedral, Tulsa; and Corpus Christi, Oklahoma City. While he was at Corpus Christi, Father Rother heard that a priest was needed at the Oklahoma mission with the Tzutuhil Indians in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. He immediately volunteered, and Bishop Reed chose him to go. That was in 1968.
Father Rother had always gravitated toward the poor, the Mexicans in San Antonio, the blacks at Corpus Christi, and now the Indians in Guatemala. He set to work to learn Spanish and then to learn the Tzutuhil language, an unwritten, language until Father Ramon Carlin had set about putting it into written form. Father Rother went to live with a native family for a while to get a better grasp of practical conversation. An Indian offered to tutor him.
Father Rother worked and mastered the difficult Tzutuhil language so that he could be in close touch with his people. After Father Carlin’s death he continued on with the translation of the gospels intothat language and then the Mass prayers. He worked with the people to show them how to read and write. He supported the radio station located on the mission property which transmitted daily lessons in language and mathematics.
"Father Rother grew like I've never seen anyone grow in the priesthood,” Jude Pansini, who worked with him many years in Guatemala, said of him. He went from being an ordinary person like the rest of us to someone very special. Most of all, he knew the law of Christ,” Pansini said. "He was atransformed wheat farmer. He really understood the theology of the sacramental system better than just about anyone I know."
Within the last year of his life, Father Rother saw the radio station smashed and the director killed. His catechists and parishioners disappeared and were found dead after having been beaten and tortured. Father Rother knew all this when he returned to Guatemala in May 1981. It didn't matter. He stayed with his people, supporting them in all their needs. He stayed until he was murdered.
By Martha Mary McGaw, CSJ
Sooner Catholic
(Page 3, August 16, 1981)
The Beautiful American is what Archbishop Charles Salatka called Father Stanley Rother who was martyred in Guatemala on July 28, 1981.
“He went forth from his own country to share the love of Christ,” the archbishop, who was principal celebrant and homilist, said at the Mass of Christian Burial on Aug. 3.
Father Rother, was buried in the red vestments of a martyr, wearing a stole made especially for him by his beloved Tzutuhil Indians. In Oklahoma City, Father Rothers’ funeral was held at Our Lady’s Cathedral with a standing room only congregation. He was buried in Holy Trinity Cemetery, Okarche, in the family plot.
Three Masses of Christian Burial were offered for Father Rother: two in Guatemala (at the mission on July 29 and in Guatemala City on July 30). And the final one in Oklahoma City. In addition, a memorial Mass was offered at Holy Trinity Church on Sunday, Aug. 2. His home parish where they clamed him as there own.
In Guatemala they claimed him too. When the Indians in Santiago Atitlan heard that he had been shot, they gathered by the hundreds and stood in the square facing the church, silently praying for their shepherd. More than a thousand stood there all day. Raymond Bailey, staff member of the American Embassy in Guatemala said: “When I saw the scene at the church with hundreds of people standing looking toward the church, it was like their God had died. It was a sight I’will remember the rest of my life.”
On Wednesday, July 29, two bishops and 35 priests concelebrated Father Rother’s funeral Mass at Santiago, Atitlan. To enable as many as possible of his people to be present, the benches had been removed from the church. More than 2,500 Indians stood within the church, thousands more stood outside.
When it was learned that Father Rother’s body would be returned to the United States, the Indians had made a special request to keep his heart and bury it at the church. They received permission from ecclesiastical and civil authorities to do so and in a touching ceremony at this Mass, the heart of the murdered priest as well as the gauze with which his blood had been carefully saved, were interned in the floor of the church sanctuary. No one was loved by the Indians with the intensity with which Father Rother was loved, a former staff member of the mission said, even though the priests who had preceded Father Rother were also loved.
Father Rother’s body was flown from Guatemala to Oklahoma City on July 31, arriving at the Will Rogers Airport. Members of the family and friends were at the airport to welcome and to witness the return of the missionary’s body. Archbishop Salatka was allowed to wait on the runway as the coffin was taken off the plane so that he might give the martyred priest the solemn blessing of the church.
The ordination card which Father Rother had designed for himself in 1963, it was remarked by a friend, was fulfilled in his life and death: “For my own sake, I am a Christian; for the sake of others I am a priest. Father Rother was ordained a priest on May 25, 1963. He died July 28, 1981, 18 years later, 13 of which had been spent in Guatemala.
(As printed in the August 16, 1981 Sooner Catholic)His Indian friends kept his heart in Guatemala
Sooner Catholic
(Page 1, August 2, 1981)
Father Stanley Rother, 46, Oklahoma missionary to Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, was shot to death in his rectory early Tuesday morning, July 28, 1981. The report of Father Rother's death was received in a telephone message from the chancery office of the Diocese of Solola. The parish of Santiago Atitlan is locted in the Solola Diocese.
Father Aguirre, vicar general of Solola, told Father John Steichen, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, that nuns from Santiago Atitlan arrived in Solola with the news the morning of July 28.
The nuns said that intruders had murdered Father Rother in his rectory about 1 a.m. Father Aguirre sent a priest to Santiago Atitlan to confirm the news. The priest reported back that Father Rother was dead and that an autopsy was being performed, probably at the small American-operated hospital at Santiago Atitlan.
Father Rother was accosted on the street in Guatemala City, in January of 1981, and was told he was on the death list and should leave the country immediately, he knew this was good advice. One of his own catechists had been kidnapped from the rectory porch on January 3. More than 20 of the parishioners of Santiago Atitlan had been abducted and murdered or were missing from the time Guatemalan troops occupied the town on Oct. 22, 1980, until January. Some 27,000 Tzutuhil Indians, are the major part of the parish membership at Santiago Atitlan.
So he did not return to the mission at Santiago Atitlan. He went into hiding for two weeks until the American Embassy could prepare the proper papers not only for him but for his Guatemalan assistant whose life was in special danger.
When Father Rother arrived at the airport in Oklahoma City, January 29, 1981, he had no luggage, only a flat briefcase. He went to stay with his parents in Okarche. He helped with the farming and did helpful things for his mother around the house. On the weekend he assisted with the Sunday Masses. Briefly he went to New York to see Mary Lou McInturff his sister-in-law. Jim Rother had died of leukemia in 1974 and Mary Lou had recently remarried. He went to Wichita to visit with the Precious Blood sisters and with Frankie Williams, a frequent volunteer at the mission. He had a portrait made for his parents.
When all this was done, he asked Archbishop Salatka if he could return to Guatemala. "My people need me," he said, "I can't stay away from them any longer." So he went back.
Father Rother returned to Guatemala and Santiago Atitlan shortly before Holy Week in April. He came home briefly in May for the ordination of his cousin. Father Don Wolf, but returned immediately to his mission parish.
When he was in Oklahoma for the ordination, the Oklahoma missionary said that several hundred troops remained camped at the edge of Santiago Atitlan. He said that the troops claimed to be there to protect the town from left-wing guerrillas in nearby mountains. The brief entry of guerrillas into Santiago Atitlan about a year ago was the apparent occasion for the troops arrival in October.
He brought his chalice and left it with his parents. They had given it to him. He visited with his close friends however briefly. There was a certain finality about his words. In retrospect, it seems that he was finishing his business. He was quietly preparing for death which might be imminent. That was his style.
Back in Guatemala, he was more careful than ever. Government forces were still stationed outside the mission village of Santiago Atitlan. He had been told his sermons were monitored. Paid informers lived in the village.
Father Rother no longer slept in his bedroom on the second floor which had two windows opening on a balcony. He slept downstairs in a room which had a heavy door. At night he slept with his boots on. As Archbishop Salatka said, "Father Stanley Rother did not go back to Guatemala to die. He went back to help his people." If death came, he would face it, as he had told his friend, Father Donald Moore, with courage and dignity.
Death did come. Assassins entered the rectory about 1 a.m., July 28, searched for him, and shot him twice in the head.
Guatemalan bishops had recently publicly denounced “a carefully studied plan to intimidate the Church and silence its prophetic voice.” Their statement was read in 330 Guatemalan parishes at Sunday Masses on July 12. The bishops stated that the government has done nothing to investigate or prosecute the murders of nine priests and hundreds of catechists.
Father Rother is thought to be the first American priest to be certainly murdered in Guatemala in recent years. The mission of Santiago Atitlan was given to the care of the Diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa in 1964. Father Rother was assigned there in 1968. He had mentioned privately that he intended to remain in mission work in Latin America for the remainder of his life.
Among Father Rother's many accomplishments at Santiago Atitlan was the translation of the New Testament into Tzutuhil language and the regular celebration of the liturgy that same tongue.
His mother and father, Gertrude and Franz Rother, received this word from Father Charles Beckman, their pastor, who came to tell them what had happened. They accepted the news with their accustomed faith. Gertrude said, "We wanted him if we could have him, but if we couldn't, we'd accept it." Franz said, "We are real proud of him. He felt his people needed him and he went back."
Should Blessed Stanley Rother have gone back to the mission in Guatemala knowing that his life was probably in danger? This question has been asked many times since his murder on July 28, 1981. His answer was simply, straightforward, and true: “My people need me.”
This question and answer lead to a consideration of the meaning of vocation, that is, a call from God to do something in his life in a very particular way. God never creates anyone without a very wonderful purpose.Father Rother’s vocation was to be a priest, someone for others. He understood that clearly.
When he went to Santiago Atitlan he forged ahead with the same single-minded purpose. A priest is everything he can be to his people. His life truly elaborated on that. With his hands he showed his love: building houses, recharging batteries, digging, hauling, burying the dead (some times finding them first, perhaps tortured then murdered), blessing babies and marriages, boiling water for the sick poor to help them get better. Father Rother had left the world of deodorants, lotions, gourmet cooking and soft skin. He was in the world of putrid smells, calluses, running sores, flea bites, casual gunshots, and overwhelming fear.
He was a priest in this world. His job was to give comfort and courage.
So he went back. But in a sense he never went back at all because he had never left those people. His heart was with them all the time. And when he died, they claimed that heart and buried it in the place that meant so much to him
Sister Martha Mary McGaw, CSJ