Saints celebrated on the 28th of July
WELCOME!
BLESSED STANLEY ROTHER, PRIEST AND MARTYR
In the early morning hours of July 28, 1981, Fr Stanley Rother was murdered in the rectory of the church of Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala. The church in this picturesque town had been adopted as a mission by Fr Rother’s Diocese of Oklahoma City-Tulsa. For Fr Rother, who was especially good at learning languages, his first challenge was to master the Mayan dialect of the Tzutuhil people. Having passed this hurdle, he quickly won their trust and respect by his complete dedication to the needs of the community. The pastoral work alone was almost overwhelming – sacraments, the training of catechists, the constant visits to the sick, providing food and medicine and other help. Sunday Masses were attended by up to three thousand five hundred people.
SUNDAY MASSES WERE PACKED
But along with all that, Fr Rother could be found wielding a hoe, organising weaving and food cooperatives, or performing many unseen acts of generosity and friendship. As the years progressed the parish church became the centre of renewal in this traditional town and Fr Rother was accepted into the inner circles of village life. They even gave him the unique honour of the name Padre A’plas. For his part he was so inspired by the faith, strength and simplicity of the Tzutuhil people that he could not imagine living apart from them.
FOR YEARS FR ROTHER AND HIS FLOCK WERE UNTOUCHED BY THE VIOLENCE
For years Fr Rother and his flock were untouched by the violence and repression that was a fixture of history. The roots of this violence went back to the Spanish conquest, but in recent years a succession of military governments in Guatemala had found in anti-communism a convenient excuse to stamp out any challenge to the status quo. Eventually the violence reached Santiago Atitlan. One of his best catechists was kidnapped and Fr Rother’s own name appeared on a death-list. Persuaded that his presence posed a risk to his pastoral team, he agreed to leave the country and returned to Oklahoma. But he could not bear to remain so far from his flock.
BY HOLY WEEK HE HAD RETURNED
By Holy Week he had returned. Things seemed relatively calm, and he was delighted to be sharing Christ’s death and resurrection among his people. Then on July 28 three masked men slipped into his room at night. From the struggle that ensued it appears that their intention was to kidnap the priest. But knowing that this would inevitably lead to torture and eventual death, Fr Rother put up a fight. He was shot twice in the head. Fr Rother was not a priest in the prophetic mould. He was in the truest sense a pastor whose life was a constant self-giving. His body was returned to Oklahoma; his heart was interred in the church in Santiago Atitlan.
(This article was published in “Far East”, Magazine of the Columban Missionaries, issue July/August 2013, paper edition. Originally from “All Saints” by Robert Ellsberg, The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 1997)
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