Cardinal Dolan urges remembrance of persecuted Christians at Christmas

December 19, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

CNA Staff, Dec 19, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- Catholic leaders have challenged the incoming Biden administration to make humanitarian efforts for persecuted Christian worldwide, noting that Christmas is a time for solidarity.

In a Dec. 16 op-ed, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Toufic Baaklini, president of In Defense of Christians, encouraged U.S. officials and residents to reflect on the story of Christmas and to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians.

They said that millions of persecuted Christians across the globe are refused access to church services by their government. For the first time, they said, Americans are facing a similar experience as pandemic restrictions have limited or suspended services across the country.

“The theme of persecution lies at the heart of the Christmas story. The Holy Family were forced to flee their native land due to state-sponsored oppression,” they wrote in the opinion piece posted to the Wall Street Journal.

“As citizens of a global superpower whose lawmakers are responsive to their citizens, we are called to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians.”

They said there are millions of persecuted Christians who face violent or political oppression atop the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic.

According to Gregory Stanton of Genocide Watch, Islamic militants such as Boko Haram have killed over 27,000 Nigerian Christians since 2009. This exceeds the number of ISIS casualties in Syria and Iraq.

Dolan and Baaklini said that in the Middle East, more than 1 million Christians in Saudi Arabia are unable to participate in worship, and Iranian officials continue to harass and arrest converts to the faith.

They also pointed to the impact of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Christians in Turkey and other countries. They said Turkish-backed militias have oppressed the descendants of Christians who survived the Ottoman Genocide.

They asked President-elect Biden to build on the accomplishments of the Trump administration by promoting international religious freedom.

“We hope President-elect Biden will build on the accomplishments of the Trump administration, namely its assistance to genocide survivors and priority on international religious freedom as a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy.”

“As for America’s Christian citizens, we must never become complacent in the face of adversity. We must roll up our sleeves, organize, and advocate for persecuted members of the body of Christ,” they concluded.

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Blessed Stanley Rother shrine fundraising campaign surpasses initial goal

September 21, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Oklahoma City, Okla., Sep 21, 2018 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City announced Tuesday that its capital campaign, one of the goals of which is the construction of a shrine for Blessed Stanley Rother, had surpassed its original $65 million goal.

“I have been grateful and humbled by the generosity of families across the archdiocese who have supported this historic campaign,” Archbishop Paul Coakley said Sept. 18. “We have been blessed to have the powerful witness of Blessed Stanley to help guide us as we build upon his legacy for future generations.”

In addition to the shine for the Oklahoma priest who was martyred in 1981 in Guatemala, the One Church, Many Disciples campaign will fund local parishes and schools, renovation of the cathedral, evangelization efforts, faith formation endowments, and retirement for elderly priests.

The Blessed Stanley Rother shrine will be built in Oklahoma City off of I-35, and will house the relics of the martyr. According to the Oklahoma City archdiocese, it will include a 2,000-seat church, a chapel, ministry and classroom buildings, a museum, and a pilgrim center.

One-third of parishes in the archdiocese have completed the capital campaign, 34 are in its midst, and 32 will begin in January 2019.

Given the success of the campaign, Archbishop Coakley has announced a challenge goal of $80 million.

Father Rother was beatified Sept. 23, 2017 in Oklahoma City.

Fr. Rother was born March 27, 1935 in Okarche, Okla., and entered seminary soon after graduating from Holy Trinity High School.

Despite a strong calling, Rother would struggle in the seminary, failing several classes and even out of one seminary before graduating from Mount St. Mary’s in Maryland. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa in 1963.

He served for five years in Oklahoma before joining the Oklahoma diocese’s mission in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, a poor rural community of mostly indigenous persons where he would spend the next 13 years of his life.

The work ethic Fr. Rother learned on his family’s farm would serve him well in this new place. As a mission priest, he was called on not just to say Mass, but to fix the broken truck or work the fields. He built a farmers’ co-op, a school, a hospital, and the first Catholic radio station.

Over the years, the violence of the Guatemalan civil war inched closer to the once-peaceful village.
Disappearances, killings, and danger soon became a part of daily life, but Fr. Rother remained steadfast and supportive of his people.

In 1980-1981, the violence escalated to an almost unbearable point; Fr. Rother was constantly seeing
friends and parishioners abducted or killed.

In January 1981, in immediate danger and his name on a death list, Fr. Rother did return to Oklahoma for a few months. But as Easter approached, he wanted to spend Holy Week with his people in Guatemala.

The morning of July 28, 1981, three Ladinos, the non-indigenous men who had been fighting the native people and rural poor of Guatemala since the 1960s, broke into Fr. Rother’s rectory. They wished to disappear him, but he refused.

Not wanting to endanger the others at the parish mission, he struggled but did not call for help. Fifteen minutes and two gunshots later, Father Stanley was dead and the men fled the mission grounds.

Though his body was buried in Okarche, Fr. Rother’s heart was enshrined in the church of Santiago Atitlan where he served.

Fr. Rother’s cause for beatification was opened in 2007, and his martyrdom was recognized by the Vatican in December 2016, which cleared the way for his beatification.

His body was exhumed from the Okarche cemetery in May 2017, and re-interred at a chapel at Resurrection Cemetery in Oklahoma City.

Blessed Stanley Rother’s feast is celebrated July 28 in the dioceses of Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Little Rock.

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