IMAGE: CNS photo/Karen Bonar, The Register
By Karen Bonar
CAWKER CITY, Kan. (CNS) — In the cozy rectory
behind Sts. Peter and Paul
Church sits Father Don McCarthy with myriad items relating to his
friend, Father Stanley Rother.
“It’s kind of like a shrine in
here,” he said, looking around.
At the window was a framed
picture of Father Rother with Guatemalan children. Father McCarthy has a box dedicated
entirely to correspondence from his seminary chum. “He and I were close
friends,” the retired priest told The Register, newspaper of the Salina Diocese.
He will be among
the throngs gathering Sept. 23 at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City to
witness the beatification of Father Rother, a priest of the Archdiocese of
Oklahoma City.
Father Rother was gunned down in
the rectory of his church in Santiago
Atitlan, Guatemala. He was considered a martyr by the church in
Guatemala. Pope Francis formally recognized the missionary priest as a martyr
Dec. 2, clearing the way for his beatification.
Originally from Galveston,
Texas, Father McCarthy attended the seminary in San Antonio during the 1950s.
“Stan and I?were not in the same
class in the seminary, but we got to be good friends, due to working together
in the book bindery and visitations at each other’s homes in vacation time,”
Father McCarthy said.
Father Rother was two years
behind Father McCarthy. Eventually, the Oklahoman was asked to leave because he
struggled with Latin.
“All of the philosophy and
theology textbooks and canon law were all in Latin. That’s the way things were
then,” Father McCarthy said.
Yet Father Rother didn’t give up
on his vocation. Bishop Victor
J. Reed, who headed what was then the Diocese of Oklahoma City-Tulsa from 1958 to 1971, helped the young student enroll
at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in
Emmitsburg, Maryland.
“We kept in touch,” Father
McCarthy said. “I used to visit in the summertime. I would stay at Stanley’s
home and tried to help at farm work, but I wasn’t very good at it. When I was
ordained in 1959, he and his mother came to Galveston for my first Mass. He was
thurifer (altar server
who carries the censer) for my first Mass.”
In return, Father McCarthy participated
in Father Rother’s first Mass in 1963.
In 1968, Father Rother went to
Santiago Atitlan on assignment from Diocese of Oklahoma City-Tulsa. (In 1972, Oklahoma City was elevated to an archdiocese and Tulsa was established as its own diocese.) Called “Padre Francisco” and “Padre Aplas,” he
helped the locals build a small hospital, school and radio station. He also
taught the locals improved methods of farming and fishing.
Despite his early
difficulties with Latin, Father Rother translated the Mass and several parts of
the New Testament into Tzutujil,
the language of his parishioners, Father McCarthy said.
“He and I stayed in contact when
he went down to Guatemala,” Father McCarthy said. “He was very much a part of
the community for years.”
The mission was about 10 years
old when Father Rother arrived, with a staff of 10. “But gradually over the
years, he was the only one left,” Father McCarthy said.
The Rother family and his
friends knew the continued presence in Guatemala was dangerous. The country was
in the midst of a brutal civil war, lasting from 1960 to 1996.
“He knew he was on a death
list,” Father McCarthy said. “(His family) encouraged him to stay (home), but
he went back. He always said, ‘The shepherd cannot run.’ I was always edified
by his attitude. He could have stayed home and been safe, but he said, ‘I want
to be with my people.'”
Father McCarthy remembered
getting the call informing him of his friend’s death July 28, 1981. He was
touched that the Rother family thought to call him a mere 24 hours after the murder.
“After Stanley was killed, they
kept his heart in a shrine in his mission church,” Father McCarthy said. “It’s
still there as a shrine.”
The Guatemalan church wished to
keep Father Rother’s body, but it was returned to Oklahoma and he was buried in
Okarche in 1981.
“I was not surprised to hear
that he was up for sainthood,” Father McCarthy said. “The Guatemalan people
considered him a martyr right away. Being a martyr was one way to become a
saint. Once you’re declared a martyr, it cleared the way for his beatification,
which is the next to last step to sainthood.”
Because of their friendship,
Father McCarthy was one of many people called to give testimony about Father Rother’s life and ministry as part of his sainthood cause. In general, following beatification, a
miracle attributed to the intercession of the sainthood candidate
is required for that person to be canonized.
He said his
friend’s life serves as an example for everyone.
“All of us are called to make
sacrifices in life,” Father McCarthy said. “Maybe not the supreme sacrifices (Father Rother)
did, but all of us need to realize we have duties and obligations we cannot run
from.”
–
– –
Bonar is editor of The Register, newspaper of
the Diocese of Salina.
– – –
Copyright © 2017 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.
