Though Stan was busy with his own duties much of the time, and I was kept busy helping the sisters in our work, we did find opportunities to get away for a “day off.” I often (about weekly) went with him to the outlying little churches where he offered Mass. Sometimes we had to take the mountain roads, which had steep drop-offs and were narrow and downright scary. One of the first times on such a trip he wryly remarked, “If we start sliding off, jump out!”
One afternoon we walked about a mile up the mountain to a location from which we had a beautiful view of Lake Atitlán, with the towering volcanic mountain San Pedro behind it and the village below us. The beauty of the landscape was breathtaking; the poverty below us was heartbreaking. This place was, for Stan, a place of quiet, a sacred place where he would retreat on occasion to renew his spiritual and physical energies by communing with his God. I truly felt honored that he shared this sacred place with me. I knew that this was not his first visit to this site, and I know that it was not his last. The whole experience on this mountain site was, for me, worth the tedious trek, because of the peacefulness of mind and heart I received.
It continues to challenge me to know that my brother, an ordinary person like you or me, could give himself in the prime of his life to such a complete dedication to serve “the poorest of the poor” of another culture and language, and to give of himself in such an extraordinary way. All of which led to “the shepherd who didn’t run.”
With a heart filled with gratitude, I remember my brother, Blessed Stanley Rother, who because of his love for God and the Tz’utujil Mayans of Guatemala, allowed God’s plan to unfold in his life. That life and death culminated in the beatification ceremony of September 23, 2017. The beautiful music, ceremonial rites, presence of the hierarchy of the Church, the thousands gathered for the celebration, continue to overwhelm my memory with unbelievable joy and blessings.
Literally hundreds of Rother-Smith relatives from around the country celebrated the event with us. Many of them we never met before, but their presence was most special.
In Blessed Stanley’s Christmas letter of 1980 to the people of Oklahoma, he asked for their prayers. In my closing remarks, I ask all of us to pray to him, using the same prayer: “Pray for us, Blessed Stanley, that we may be a sign of Jesus to his people.”
Sister Marita Rother, A.S.C.
December 2018
Chapter 1
Love to the Extreme Limit
July 28, 1981: The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run
It was a quiet, clear night in the lakeside village of Santiago Atitlán. For almost a week now, the moderate, cool temperatures in the Guatemala highlands had been chilly enough for a jacket in the middle of summer.
Sounds travel far in this isolated region of Guatemala, where the only recurring nighttime noises are animal ones. No sound of A/C units. No sound of cars and highways. No planes flying overhead or trains nearby. The type of silence experienced by most people in the United States only when camping in the deep woods, during a storm blackout, or by someone living in farm country. It was a silence well familiar to Stanley Francis Rother, a native of Okarche, Oklahoma.
The sound of three men breaking into the rectory of St. James the Apostle Church at 1:30 a.m. must have carried well beyond the village square — their enraged voices and aggressive movements like nails hammering a public message of terror to any listening ear.
Wearing civilian clothes and ski masks, the three Spanish-speaking Ladinos (non-indigenous men), were familiar enough with the parish complex to know the precise location of the pastor’s upstairs bedroom. They rushed there first but found no one in the room.
Then across the hall they seized Francisco Bocel, the 19-year-old brother of the associate pastor, who had been working at the rectory and staying there provisionally. They put a gun to the terrified young man’s head and threatened to kill him if he did not take them to the pastor immediately.
Francisco led the attackers down the stairs and to the door of a corner utility room. He knocked, calling out in terror, “Padre, they’ve come for you.”
That’s when Father Stanley, aware of the danger to the young man, opened the door and let his killers in. Francisco was ordered to go back upstairs to his room and lock the door, and he did so — remaining there for the next 20 minutes.
The assailants wanted to kidnap Father Stanley, turn him into one of the desaparecidos (the missing). But he would have none of that. He was aware of Francisco, of the nine unsuspecting sisters in the convent across the patio, and of the other innocents in the rectory that night — all in danger of also being dragged away. And Father Stanley knew they would torture and, ultimately, kill him. He never called for help.
From his hiding place, Francisco heard the muffled noises of a struggle — bodies crashing into furniture and each other, several thuds. There was a gunshot. Then another. Then silence, followed by the sound of scrambling feet running away. After what seemed an endless period of silence, Francisco found the courage to come out of his hiding space. He rushed to wake up Bertha Sánchez, a nurse volunteer staying in the parish complex, and he ran to alert the Carmelite sisters in the convent across the courtyard from the rectory. “They killed him! They killed Padre Francisco!”
The women ran in and found Father Stanley shot in the head and lying in a pool of his blood. They immediately began to pray. His dear friend Bertha pronounced Stanley Francis Rother dead at the scene.
The Santiago Atitlán Mission: A Return to Ministry
How a 46-year-old priest from a small German farming community in Oklahoma came to live and die in this remote, ancient Guatemalan village is a story full of wonder and God’s providence.
When Pope St. John XXIII requested in the early 1960s that North Americans send missionaries to South and Central America, the Oklahoma Church responded.
In 1964, the then Diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa took over the care of the church of St. James the Apostle (Santiago Apóstol), the heart of the oldest parish in the Diocese of Sololá, dating back to the 16th century. But no resident priest had served the indigenous Tz’utujil community of Santiago Atitlán for almost a century. Oklahoma priests, sisters, and lay workers served the mission until 2000, when sufficient growth in local vocations allowed the Guatemala diocese, now called the Diocese of Sololá-Chimaltenango, to resume pastoral care.
From the onset, that first Oklahoma missionary team understood that the Tz’utujil are an agricultural people who retain much of their ancient Mayan culture and pride. This was a perfect fit for Father Stanley, a farming boy from the western Oklahoma town of Okarche.
When he arrived at Santiago Atitlán in 1968, Father Stanley instantly fell in love with the volatile and stunning land of volcanoes and earthquakes — but above all, with its people. His Tz’utujil Indian parishioners called him “Padre Apla’s,” which translates as “Francis” or “Francisco” in the native Tz’utujil language. When speaking in Spanish, they called Father Stanley “Padre Francisco,” based on “Francis,” his middle name, because it was easier to pronounce than the Spanish for Stanley, “Estanislao.” Over his years of service, Father Stanley helped develop a farmers’ co-op, a nutrition center, a school, a hospital clinic, and the first Catholic radio station in the area, which was used for catechesis.
And although he did not institute the project, he was a critical driving force in developing Tz’utujil as a written language, which led to translations of the liturgy of the Mass and the Lectionary, with the New Testament in Tz’utujil being published after his death.
In the most tangible way, Father Stan exemplified with his life and through his vocation what Pope Francis described regarding the distinctive ministry of men and women who choose a consecrated life: “A radical approach is required of all Christians, but religious persons are called upon to follow the Lord in a special way: They