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Blessed Stanley Rother, left, a priest from Oklahoma, served impoverished Indigenous people in Guatemala. On July 28, 1981, then-Father Rother was murdered in his parish rectory in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala. Pope Francis officially recognized the American priest as a martyr Dec. 1, 2016, and he was beatified during a Mass celebrated at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City Sept. 23, 2017. (OSV News file photo)

Pilgrims turn to ‘red dirt Catholic’ martyr as Blessed Stanley Rother story gets wide release


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OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Saints, World News

OKLAHOMA CITY (OSV News) — Blessed Stanley Rother’s witness in the face of persecution in Guatemala hits home, said Gaby Damasceno, who has family in Nicaragua where the Church is facing increased persecution.

“We still have an uncle over there, and we see how hard it is, especially with kids and raising families over there,” Damasceno said. “We’re turning to (Blessed Stanley) for his help. Seeing the work and the love that he’s done with Guatemala, it’s a light into what’s going on in Nicaragua right now.”

Damasceno and her husband Pietro attended the Blessed Stanley Rother Feast Day Mass at the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine July 28 ahead of the premiere of the documentary on Blessed Stanley’s life later that evening. The documentary was released in theaters nationwide in both English and Spanish Aug. 25-27.

With a social media following through Gaby Damasceno’s small Catholic home décor company Gabrielle Isabel, the couple, who attend St. Ann Parish in Coppell, Texas, had been invited to help promote the film.

“It really is a really meaningful story to me,” Pietro Damasceno said of Blessed Stanley’s life. “It’s not easy to make a documentary and to get promotion, which is important. So we love to just be able to contribute to that.”

The Mass readings for the feast day recounted Samuel’s anointing of David, drawing parallels with Blessed Stanley. After Samuel had met the physically impressive seven older sons of Jesse, the prophet was told by the Lord to anoint instead the youngest brother, the ruddy shepherd David, as the new king over Israel.

“The one that the Lord chose was not the obvious one. That’s one of the things that struck me,” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City told OSV News. “Stanley was a good man, ordinary guy, but may not have stood out in a crowd as the Lord’s Anointed. God’s ways are not our ways; God’s ways are mysterious. He chooses whom he will.”

When Blessed Stanley first arrived in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, in 1968, other members of the mission team looked down on him because they didn’t consider him to be “up-to-date theologically” or sophisticated on matters concerning the Church.

“But Father Rother gave his life and his heart for his people. He was the one of that original mission team that persevered to the end, persevered to the point of shedding his blood,” Archbishop Coakley said in his homily that day.

Blessed Stanley, the archbishop said, was given little chance of being ordained by his first seminary because of his failure to master Latin. Reminiscent of Pentecost, however, after arriving in Guatemala Blessed Stanley mastered not only Spanish, but became “more proficient than any of the other missionaries on the team in the intricacies of Tz’utujil, an obscure Mayan dialect,” the archbishop said.

While in Guatemala, not only did Blessed Stanley learn the native language, but he also opened a health clinic, created farm and craft co-ops, trained catechists and established a radio station in Tz’utujil to evangelize the people in their own language.

The fact that Blessed Stanley struggled in seminary serves as a source of inspiration for seminarians and priests today, the archbishop told OSV News. While there are still a few priests who knew Father Rother personally, younger priests and seminarians are continuing to get to know him today.

“We have a new generation of young priests that didn’t know him and were not around, so we’re trying to acquaint a new generation of priests and seminarians with Blessed Stanley because his is a life worthy of studying and a witness and an example worthy to be imitated,” he said. “There’s a great deal of interest and pride among the priests and seminarians here in Oklahoma regarding Blessed Stanley Rother — he’s one of our own. He’s a red dirt Catholic.”

Delaney Schmidt — a parishioner of St. Damien Parish in Edmond, Oklahoma, who moved to the state from Colorado in January — brought her 10-month-old son Augustine to the feast day Mass with her. As a Catholic convert, she explained why she looks to the witness of martyrs such as Blessed Stanley.

“I definitely faced opposition from my family and friends who didn’t understand,” Schmidt said of her journey into the Catholic Church from non-denominational Christianity. “Taking that small bit of inspiration from him who gave up his life for the Church, I think that’s really inspiring for me.”

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