Deepertuth: Stand In The Gap With Us And Blessed Stanley Rother

“Almighty Father, I place the Precious Blood of Jesus before my lips before I pray, that my prayers may be purified before they ascend to Your divine altar.”

Stand In The Gap With Us And Blessed Stanley Rother 7/28/2024.  Rother was serving as a missionary priest with the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City when he was killed by unknown assailants on July 28, 1981, in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. He had volunteered to serve the diocesan mission in Guatemala at a time when the Central American country was in the midst of a civil war.

On May 25, 1963, Stanley Francis Rother, a farmer’s son from Okarche, Oklahoma, was ordained for his home diocese of Oklahoma City-Tulsa. Having flunked out of the area seminary due to his difficulty with Latin, Fr. Rother finally accepted an invitation to attend Mount St. Mary Seminary in Maryland, where he finished his studies and was approved for ordination.

After serving in his local diocese for five years, Fr. Rother joined five priests, three religious' sisters, and three laypersons to staff a Guatemalan mission in Santiago Atitlán serving the Tz’utujil people. The Oklahoma City diocese heard the call of Pope John XXIII to send missionaries to foreign lands, especially Central America. These twelve individuals felt the call, and with their bishop’s approval, left the comforts of the United States to live and work in Guatemala.

By 1975, Fr. Rother was alone at his parish in Santiago Atitlán, the others having returned home for various reasons. He served the Tz’utujil people for 13 years and won their hearts and souls. Ever the farmer, and always unpretentious and mild mannered, Fr. Rother experimented with various crops as well as fulfilling his heavy pastoral duties which included as many as five Masses in four different locations on a given Sunday and as many as 1,000 baptisms a year.