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VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis has recognized the
martyrdom of Father Stanley Rother of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, making
him the first martyr born in the United States.
The Vatican made the announcement Dec. 2. The recognition
of his martyrdom clears the way for his beatification.
Father Rother, born March 27, 1935, on his family’s farm
near Okarche, Oklahoma, was brutally murdered July 28, 1981, in a Guatemalan
village where he ministered to the poor.
He went to Santiago Atitlan in 1968 on assignment from
the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. He helped the people there build a small
hospital, school and its first Catholic radio station. He was beloved by the
locals, who called him “Padre Francisco.”
Many priests and religious in Guatemala became targets
during the country’s 1960-1996 civil war as government forces cracked down on
leftist rebels supported by the rural poor.
The bodies of some of Father Rother’s deacons and
parishioners were left in front of his church and soon he received numerous
death threats over his opposition to the presence of the Guatemalan military in
the area.
Though he returned to Oklahoma for a brief period, he
returned to the Guatemalan village to remain with the people he had grown to
love during the more than dozen years he lived there.
He was gunned down at the age 46 in the rectory of his
church in Santiago Atitlan. Government officials there put the blame on the
Catholic Church for the unrest in the country that they said led to his death.
On the day he died, troops also killed 13 townspeople and wounded 24 others in
Santiago Atitlan, an isolated village 50 miles west of Guatemala City.
Many priests and religious lost their lives and thousands
of civilians were kidnapped and killed during the years of state-sponsored
oppression in the country.
While his body was returned to Oklahoma, his family gave
permission for his heart and some of his blood to be enshrined in the church of
the people he loved and served. A memorial plaque marks the place.
Father Rother was considered a martyr by the church in
Guatemala and his name was included on a list of 78 martyrs for the faith
killed during Guatemala’s 36-year-long civil war. The list of names to be
considered for canonization was submitted by Guatemala’s bishops to St. John
Paul II during a pastoral visit to Guatemala in 1996.
Because Father Rother was killed in Guatemala, his cause
should have been undertaken there. But the local church lacked the resources
for such an effort. The Guatemalan bishops’ conference agreed to a transfer of
jurisdiction to the Oklahoma City archdiocese.
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