American Martyr: Blessed Stanley Rother

From the plains of Oklahoma, and practically on the frontage road of Interstate 35, rises a visual anomaly: a magnificent, white, Spanish Colonial mission-style church. You might more reasonably expect a working oil field or an Indian casino along I-35; but instead, the Shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother crowns the unremarkable landscape like the Emerald City of Oz. The Shrine is the pride of Oklahoma City Catholics, who raised an astounding $65 million to see its completion in 2023.

With hundreds of thousands of visitors coming each year, the story of Blessed Stanley Rother is percolating out of Oklahoma to the rest of the country. A new movie, American Martyr, playing August 25-26 in English and August 27 in Spanish, will hurry it along. Tickets went on sale July 28, the feast day of Blessed Stanley. Like so many good indie films, it will enjoy a very short run. It’s a high-quality documentary narrated by Martin Sheen, with contributions from Rother’s siblings and cousins, Oklahoma bishops, and the postulator of Blessed Stanley’s cause and his biographer, María Ruis Scaperlanda.

Rother is the first American-born martyr recognized as such by the Church. He was so immediately perceived to be a saint that his flock in Guatemala collected his blood in pickle jars from the floor of his rectory where he was shot in the head in 1981.

The movie will give you many reasons to love Blessed Stanley but let me start with this one: he flunked seminary. Growing up in a wee farming town where Latin was not taught, he was behind from the beginning in seminary classes still conducted in Latin. He excelled at physical work like mechanics and agriculture, but Latin was a dragon guarding the gold; he could not get past it. After years of struggle, he was dismissed and went home to Okarche without being ordained.

But like Jesus on the way of sorrows, he didn’t give up; he got back on his feet. His bishop agreed he had a true call and continued to search for alternative paths. In a move that must make them very proud today, Mount St. Mary’s Seminary agreed to take him.

Stanley Rother was ordained in 1963 to the overflowing joy of his extended Oklahoma family.

When he began his ministry, Vatican II was in mid-stride. There was a new excitement in the air, and small congregations like those in Oklahoma wanted a wider part to play. Though the Catholic Church has always had missionaries, it was unusual for a diocesan priest to serve a foreign mission. Fr. Stan was already an unusual vocation, and after pastoring for a few years in Oklahoma, he was sent.

Fr. Rother arrived in Santiago Atitlán in southwest Guatemala in 1968. It was a terribly poor little village, nestled around a remote volcanic lake. Most of his parishioners were subsistence-farming Mayan Indians who spoke Tz’utujil, a Mayan dialect that was foreign even to 99 percent of all Guatemalans. And into their midst came a man who couldn’t learn Latin. It was like a cosmic joke.

He improbably became a fluent speaker in the arcane language, which just goes to show that when you’re in the right place, God comes to assist. The people hadn’t had a priest in residence for 150 years, so they were eager to love Fr. Stan—and his success at speaking their language mightily deepened the bond. They called him “Padre A’plas,” a diminutive of his middle name, Francis. If you’re wondering how “A’plas” comes from “Francis,” well, welcome to the complete unfamiliarity of the Tz’utujil language, which makes it all the more poignant that Fr. Stan mastered it.

He was part of their daily lives and celebrations as well as their spiritual lives. Though he rather stood out with his pale, ginger coloring, he was one of the family. You can see that in the many photographs and home movies that were taken of him, several of which are shown in the movie.

I have to admit that I’m generally distrustful of anything that developed in the ’60s, but Fr. Stan was the real thing. He didn’t go marching in protests or write inflammatory essays; he didn’t find native pagan goddesses to elevate. He stayed true to the Gospel and got down to work.

Fr. Stan trained a cadre of catechists to go up into the mountains to reach the most remote of the flock. He used his experience in farming to produce a greater variety of crops than the staple corn which, when eaten exclusively, produces the malnutrition he saw in people. He started a health clinic for the community; up to that point, 50 percent of the children there died before age 6. He acquired land so that subsistence farmers and those who had to work for plantation owners could work locally and earn enough to provide. It was the first time some of the parishioners had ever had money in their pockets. The prospects of Santiago Atitlán were changing.

And that drew the attention of the government.

Guatemala had been divided into huge estates by the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century, reducing the native Mayans to serfdom. Even after Guatemala gained independence from Spain, the Mayans fared no better. Tobacco and sugar crops were introduced, which required enslaved labor. Attempts to break up the large estates were opposed by foreign corporations to protect their profits.

When Fr. Rother arrived in 1968, the natives lived in the kind of poverty that has no room for improvement since every day is consumed by simple survival. Guerilla elements inevitably rose up out of the desperation.

Fr. Stan preached against violence, both of the guerillas and the retaliatory military; but the genocide of the natives had begun, and it roared down the tracks like a runaway engine. It had only needed an excuse, and the unhappy natives who turned to violence provided it. Tens of thousands of Mayans, including priests, were “disappeared” or executed publicly by the military, regardless of whether or not they had any connection to the guerillas.

One night in January 1981, one of Fr. Stan’s Mayan catechists was caught outside the rectory and hustled into a waiting car. Fr. Stan rushed out the door, only to see it driving away. The man never returned. A few days later, 16 more Tz’utujil were executed by firing squad in the middle of the town. The military had a hit list, and Fr. Stan was known to be at the top, followed by his indigenous associate pastor.

The parishioners begged Fr. Stan to save himself, so he packed for Oklahoma. During his days back home, it became clear to his family and friends that he would return to Guatemala—and that he knew he might be killed. Around that time, he wrote, “A shepherd can’t run at the first sign of danger.” He prayed the cup to pass him by, but he could not bear to abandon his people. In photos taken at that time, you can see the gravity in his eyes. He knew.

Padre A’plas had promised his flock that he would return in time for Holy Week, and he made it so. The celebration of Palm Sunday that year was especially poignant with Fr. Stan back in their midst, but the surveillance and persecution by the military continued. The archival footage of Palm Sunday 1981 is shown in the movie, and it is both jubilant and shattering, just like the first Holy Week.

Several months later, on July 28, 1981, after midnight, three masked men broke into the rectory and executed Fr. Stan. As soon as the sisters nearby heard the news, they rang the church bells and the people converged on the rectory, the church, and the plaza. Fr. Stan had left instructions that if he was killed they were to light the Paschal candle and sing resurrection songs. He had anticipated that some people would be tempted to violence if he was killed, but his instructions kept them from actions that would have brought the military down on them like chickens on a potato bug.

The Tz’utujil were permitted to keep forever the heart of Padre A’plas on the altar of the parish church of Santiago Atitlán, and his remains were returned to Oklahoma, where they now lie in that splendid Shrine on I-35.

The fact that Fr. Stan returned to his people when he knew the risk to himself makes him a shepherd for our time—for all time, really. It is the pattern of Our Lord Jesus to lay down His life for us, and we need men in the Church willing to follow that example. It’s not the good grades, or the brilliant essays, or political theories we most need; it’s love for the people. It is the generous application of the priestly heart to the genuine needs of the flock that we long for.

See the movie if you can. It will not rock the box office—it’s a Catholic documentary, after all—but it will illumine your heart about “the shepherd who didn’t run,” and it will strengthen your resolve to stay true to your vocation at any cost. You can see the trailer for the film here. Click here to purchase tickets.

Blessed Stanley Rother, pray for us.