Blessed Stanley Rother

Stanley Francis Rother was an American Catholic priest from Oklahoma who was murdered in Guatemala in 1981. He had worked as a missionary priest there since 1968. He held several parish assignments as a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City from 1963 to 1968 before being assigned to Guatemala. On December 1, 2016, Pope Francis confirmed that Rother had died a martyr, murdered for his faith, and 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, and the second person to be beatified on American soil after the New Jersey-born nun Miriam Teresa Demjanovich in 2014. Stanley Francis 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. He was baptized on March 29, 1935, in Okarche's Holy Trinity Church by Father Zenon Steber. His sister Betty Mae adopted the religious name Sister Marita upon taking her vows, and they had two brothers, Tom and Jim. Rother was strong and adept at farm tasks. He decided to become a priest after completing high school at Holy Trinity School. He studied at Saint John Seminary and then Assumption Seminary in San Antonio, Texas. He served as a sacristan, groundskeeper, bookbinder, plumber, and gardener. After almost six years, seminary staff advised him to withdraw due to academic struggles, particularly with Latin. Following consultation with Bishop Victor Reed of Oklahoma City, Rother attended Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, from which he graduated in 1963. Bishop Reed ordained him to the priesthood on May 25, 1963. Rother served as a parochial vicar in various parishes around Oklahoma: Saint William in Durant, Saint Francis Xavier and the Holy Family Cathedral in Tulsa, and Corpus Christi in Oklahoma City.