Upcoming Events View All
19
Labyrinth Anniversary Celebration

Tuesday, 03/19/2024 at 3:00 PM - 8:00 PM

24
St. Vincent de Paul Annual Palm Sunday Dinner

Sunday, 03/24/2024 at 11:30 AM - 6:00 PM

24
Black Women Poets: Vision and Voice

Sunday, 03/24/2024 at 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

24
Annual Legion of Mary Acies

Sunday, 03/24/2024 at 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM

2
Speaker: Social Media and Teen Mental Health

Tuesday, 04/02/2024 at 6:30 PM

5
6
St. Mark Book Fair

Saturday, 04/06/2024 at 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

7
Poet Laureates Alive: Smith, Harjo, and Limon with Noeli Lytton

Sunday, 04/07/2024 at 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

7
Divine Mercy Sunday

Sunday, 04/07/2024 at 2:00 PM

10
Where Art Serves the World

Wednesday, 04/10/2024 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Photo Credit: Dave Crenshaw | Eastern Oklahoma Catholic/CNS

Blessed Rother ‘an authentic light’ for Church and world, says cardinal

OKLAHOMA CITY — If the martyrdom of Blessed Stanley Francis Rother "fills us with sadness," it also "gives us the joy of admiring the kindness, generosity and courage of a great man of faith," Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, said Sept. 23 in Oklahoma City.

The 13 years Blessed Rother spent as a missionary in Guatemala "will always be remembered as the glorious epic of a martyr of Christ, an authentic lighted torch of hope for the Church and the world," the cardinal said in his homily during the U.S. priest's beatification Mass.

"Formed in the school of the Gospel, he saw even his enemies as fellow human beings. He did not hate, but loved. He did not destroy, but built up," Cardinal Amato said.

"This is the invitation that Blessed Stanley Francis Rother extends to us today. To be like him as witnesses and missionaries of the Gospel. Society needs these sowers of goodness," he said. "Thank you, Father Rother! Bless us from heaven!"

The cardinal was the main celebrant of the beatification Mass, joined by Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City and his predecessor, retired Archbishop Eusebius J. Beltran, who formally opened the Rother sainthood cause 10 years ago.

An overflow crowd of 20,000 packed the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City for the beatification of Father Rother, murdered in 1981 as he served the faithful at a mission in Guatemala sponsored by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. The evening before a prayer service was held at St. Benedict Parish in Broken Arrow.

In Rome, Pope Francis said Sept. 24: "May his heroic example help us be courageous witnesses of the Gospel, dedicating ourselves in supporting human dignity." After praying the Angelus with visitors gathered in St. Peter's Square, the pope recalled the "missionary priest, killed out of hatred for the faith, for his work in evangelization and the human advancement of the poorest in Guatemala."

In Oklahoma City, before the Sept. 23 Mass began, the congregation viewed a documentary made about his life and ministry titled "The Shepherd Cannot Run: Father Rother's Story." Then Cardinal Amato, Archbishop Coakley, Archbishop Beltran and about 50 other U.S. bishops, more than 200 priests and about 200 deacons processed in for the start of the beatification ceremony.

Before Cardinal Amato read the apostolic letter declaring Father Rother "Blessed," Archbishop Beltran gave some remarks about Father Rother.

Once in Guatemala to serve in Santiago Atitlan, Father Rother learned Tz'utujil, the language of the many Mayan descendants who were his parishioners. He helped translate the Bible into Tz'utujil.

The mission was about 10 years old when Father Rother arrived in 1968 and had a staff of 10, but the number of missionaries dwindled as Guatemala's civil war, which began in 1960 and lasted until 1996, intensified. Eventually, Father Rother's name appeared on a death threat list and he returned home.

"His ways were very quiet and unassuming but eventually he began to receive death threats," the archbishop continued. "He made infrequent visits (back to Oklahoma). On his last visit (in 1981) he felt the need to return to his people no matter what the consequences."

Friends recalled him saying, "The shepherd cannot run. I want to be with my people." Within three days of his return, three men entered his rectory in the dead of night and murdered him.

His feast day will be celebrated July 28, the day when he was fatally shot in the head by masked men.

Relics of Blessed Rother, including a piece from one of his rib bones, were brought to the altar in a golden reliquary and set on a small table to the left of the main altar. Cardinal Amato venerated the relics and censed the reliquary.

Rother family members then came up to the altar to greet the cardinal: his sister, Sister Marita Rother, a member of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, who lives at her community's motherhouse in Wichita, Kan.; and his brother Tom and his wife, Marti, who live on the farm where the martyred priest and his siblings grew up, located three miles from the center of Okarche. 

Related Articles Module

Recent Articles Module

From the Archive Module

Blessed Rother an authentic light for Church and world says cardinal 2026

Must Watch Videos

Now Playing

    View More Videos