Oklahoma City, Okla., Sep 13, 2017 / 03:16 am (CNA).- Unlikely.
It’s a word often used to describe the story of Fr. Stanley Rother, an unlikely priest who came from an unlikely place in the middle of Oklahoma to take on an unlikely task and die an unlikely death, who is now on the unlikely path of becoming a canonized saint.
All of it certainly seemed unlikely, at least for a while, to Fr. Stanley’s little sister, Sr. Marita, who has been a religious sister since the age of 17.
One never really considers that saints could be found within one’s own family, Sister Marita told CNA.
“As young people, when we learned about the saints, their backgrounds, why they became a saint, we said: ‘How did they do it? We could never do that!’” Sr. Marita recalled.
“And then you see something like this in reality, and it puts a whole new perspective on life, on God’s purpose in our life and why we’re here.”
Sr. Marita’s big brother will be beatified in Oklahoma City on September 23. Pope Francis officially recognized his martyrdom, clearing the way for his beatification, in December 2016.
Fr. Stanley was killed in 1981 while serving at a mission parish in Guatemala, at which he had been stationed for 13 years. While at the mission, he had built schools, hospitals, wells and a Catholic radio station, as well as a strong rapport with and love for the people there. In the midst of Guatemala’s civil war, Fr. Stanley briefly left the country in 1981, but returned to be with his parishioners, which cost him his life.
For those who knew him as he was growing up, the idea that Stanley would become a great leader in the faith on the path to canonization would have seemed, well, unlikely.
Growing up with quiet, ‘occasionally ornery’ Stanley
“He was quiet, kind of bashful in a sense, so was I,” Sr. Marita said. “Introverted or whatever you want to call it.”
She said she remembered teachers calling Stanley, herself and their next brother Jim the “three little bears” at school “because we were just like stairsteps” – very close in age.
Stanley was well-behaved – they all were – at school, said Sr. Marita, because in a the small German Catholic town of Okarche, Oklahoma, surrounded by siblings and cousins and relatives, word spread fast if you decided to act up.
But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t get up to the occasional “ornery” thing on the farm, Sr. Marita added.
One time in particular stood out to her. She was checking the hen house for eggs with Stanley when he asked her to reach up and check under a hen that she was sure had already been checked.
“And I said ‘well you just did it,’ and he said ‘I didn’t do that one.’ So I reached in,” Sr. Marita recalled.
But instead of grabbing a chicken egg, she got a hold of a big (non-venomous) bull snake that had been hiding out in the chicken house.
“And that made me really mad at him, so I chased him to the house for it,” Sr. Marita recalled.
“He got halfway there and I picked up a can from the yard and flung it at him…and it hit him right over the eye. He had a scar there the rest of his life,” she said. “I got in trouble for that one, because I could have hit him in the eye.”
“But that was probably the orneriest thing he did. That was such a scare for me, and he thought it was so funny, and he knew that it wouldn’t hurt me,” she said, laughing.
Stanley was busy helping his parents on the farm, and became president of the school’s chapter of Future Farmers of America, an agricultural club.
He was talented at farming, Sr. Marita said, but he couldn’t ignore God’s call.
Fostering a vocation
There are some things about Fr. Stanley’s story that are not so unlikely.
The fact that his vocation was fostered in the family home in Okarche, Oklahoma, where life revolved around family, farming, and the Catholic schools and parishes, seems very likely.
In fact, there was a lot of discernment about vocations within the Rother family. Sr. Marita said she doesn’t remember who told their parents first, but she and Stanley both declared that they were pursuing vocations the same summer – he would enter seminary, and she would enter religious life. Stanley had just finished high school, and Sr. Marita still had a year left. They hadn’t discussed their decisions with each other before telling their parents.
“We never talked about it that much in the family,” she said, as far as discerning vocations.
But they were surrounded by family and friends who shared their morals and values, and they prayed together daily.
“We went to Mass, and any time there was prayer in the church we were there. The school was a tremendous support as far as building on what the family had done, and the rosary in our family was an everyday occurrence,” Sr. Marita said.
“After our evening meal we knew that we would kneel for a good 20 minutes, it was our prayer time. And I don’t think we realized the importance of that until we moved on in life.”
The Rother’s parents, Franz and Gertrude, were supportive of their vocations, although they did report that the dinner table felt a little lonelier when it suddenly shrank from six to four.
Bright, but in unexpected ways
Never much for academics, Stanley would struggle when he entered seminary in San Antonio, Texas.
Latin was particularly difficult for him, so much so that he ended up failing out of his first seminary. When he returned to his home diocese, they offered him a second chance at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
There, he was able to receive the tutoring he needed to eventually graduate and be ordained.
Fr. Donald Wolf is the second cousin of Fr. Stanley Rother, on his mother’s side. Fr. Wolf told CNA that while everyone would “make a big deal” out of Fr. Stanley’s “not being very bright” academically, Fr. Stanley excelled in other areas.
“Everybody makes a big deal of the fact that he was asked to leave the seminary, he was never any good at Latin, and his studies were just not the first thing on his mind,” Fr. Wolf said.
“But he was, as his father was, a really really good mechanic. Not just that he kind of knew how to fix things, I mean he was really brilliant at that kind of stuff, and really really capable,” he recalled.
“So one of the things that marked his life was his mastery of those things – carpentry and masonry and plumbing and mechanics in a really remarkable way. So he did not think of himself as a failure, nor did his family. It was one of those attributes which his father had times 10 – his ability to solve problems, and his sense that he could do anything.”
The perfect fit: called to mission
When Stanley was still in seminary, Pope St. John XXIII asked the churches of North America to establish missions in Central America. Soon after, the diocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa established a mission in Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala, a poor rural community of mostly indigenous people.
Five years after he was ordained, Fr. Stanley asked to join the mission team, where he would spend the next 13 years of his life.
Although Guatemala was a long way from Okarche, the decision seemed to make sense to everyone – priests, family and Fr. Stanley himself believed this mission would be a “perfect fit,” Fr. Wolf said.
“Part of that was he just never fit in very well around here” as a priest in the diocese, Fr. Wolf said.
“He wasn’t very articulate, he wasn’t pushing for change everywhere, he wasn’t one of those guys who could attract notice…so when he volunteered to go to the mission, to do the kind of things that he could do well – taking care of the mechanical needs, taking care of the plants, making sure the plumbing worked and that the electricity stays on – everyone figured that was a perfect position for him, and he figured that it was a perfect position for him.”
Fr. Stanley, tri-lingual pastor extraordinaire
For Sr. Marita, however, finding out her brother volunteered to go on mission to Guatemala was kind of a shock. The two had had limited contact since joining religious life, and communicated mostly through letters, in which Fr. Stanley never expressed a desire for the missions.
“I had no idea he was leaning in that direction,” she recalled.
It wasn’t until she was able to visit him in Guatemala – once in 1973 and again in 1978 – that she was able to watch him in action and see how well it suited him.
By that time, Stanley, the Latin flunkie, had mastered Spanish and the local native Tzutuhil dialect, and had won over the hearts of the people, who seemed to swarm around him everywhere he went, she recalled.
“To see him in that vein was a grace, because I did not know that about him, how compassionate he was with people, how he responded with the young people, they would flock around him, come to chat when they saw him coming down the road.”
She said she remembered watching him help some young people fix a truck that had broken down – a chance to use his master mechanical skills. During his time at the mission, he also built a farmers’ co-op, a school, a hospital, and the first Catholic radio station, which was used for transmitting catechesis to the even more remote villages.
“He evolved very quickly into his role as pastor, as someone who was tri-lingual. He was, it would appear, perfectly equipped to take care of the challenges of the people in the middle of the challenges of that place,” Fr. Wolf said.
‘Absolute, resolute stubbornness’
Over the years, the violence of an ongoing Guatemalan civil war inched closer to Fr. Stanley’s once-peaceful village. Disappearances, killings and danger soon became a part of daily life, but Fr. Stanley remained steadfast and supportive of his people.
“The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger,” Fr. Stanley wrote in a letter home, which would become his signature quote.
“Pray for us that we may be a sign of the love of Christ for our people, that our presence among them will fortify them to endure these sufferings in preparation for the coming of the Kingdom.”
In 1980-1981, the situation reached a boiling point. At the behest of friends and family and with his name on a hit list, Fr. Stanley returned to Oklahoma for a few months in January 1981. But as the weeks and months went on and as Easter approached, he was anxious to get back to the mission.
“He really did become one of them, and they claimed him as one of them, so when you leave someone you really love, you want to be there for them,” Sr. Marita said.
In Guatemala, Holy Week is “a lived experience, it’s not just portrayal, so he wanted to be back for that, and celebrate that with them,” Sr. Marita recalled.
Sr. Marita was able to visit Fr. Stanley while he was home that winter. It was the last time she would see her older brother alive.
“As we talked about it, I realized more and more, that no matter what any of us said, he knew that he had to listen to how God was speaking to him (and return). And we accepted that, we weren’t too surprised that that was what he wanted to do.”
But not everyone was so supportive of his decision. Fr. Wolf said for years, many people, including people within the family, considered Fr. Stanley’s decision to leave the safety of the United States and face almost certain death as another sign that he just wasn’t very bright.
“One of my uncles in particular just was not at all impressed with Stanley’s decision to do this,” Fr. Wolf said.
Still, it wasn’t surprising to anyone who knew Fr. Stanley or the Rother family that once his mind was made up, there was little anyone could do to change it.
“One of the attributes of the Rother family – just ask around – is absolute, resolute stubbornness that they’re going to do what they’re going to do,” he said.
“And the Lord builds the supernatural upon the natural, and that was one of the natural attributes that he worked with, because Stanley was not going to be deterred.”
“But if you ever spent 10 minutes with his father you’d know that that’s something he came by perfectly naturally. His father, his father’s brothers, my mother, her brothers and sister – I mean it is a pretty tough crowd,” Fr. Wolf added with a laugh.
So Fr. Stanley returned in time to celebrate Easter with his people. A few months later, at 1:30 in the morning on July 28, 1981, three armed hitmen broke into the rectory where Fr. Stanley was sleeping. They were known for their kidnappings, and wanted to turn Father Stanley into one of “the missing.”
Not wanting to endanger the others at the parish mission, Fr. Stanley struggled but did not call for help. Fifteen minutes and two gunshots later, Fr. Stanley was dead. The men fled the mission grounds.
Fr. Stanley’s legacy
While the rest of Fr. Stanley’s body was buried in Okarche, his heart remained in Guatemala, and will become a relic once he’s beatified.
Sr. Marita said that in Guatemala, they were quick to call him a martyr, while the legacy of her brother’s witness continued to grow in Oklahoma over the years.
“Bishop (Eusebius) Beltran told my parents that he’ll be considered a saint one day, and they felt very strong about it, they had that to dream about at least before they died,” she said.
Gertrude Rother would pass away in 1987, just a few years after her son, and Franz Rother died in 2000. The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City officially started working on the cause of Fr. Stanley in 2007, though the church in Guatemala had already gotten it off the ground.
“When they started doing the interviewing it became more of a reality to everybody, that it would be for promoting his cause,” Sr. Marita said.
“It really is difficult for me to express in certain terms, but I am deeply grateful and proud of him. It’s an awesome experience, one that you would never dream of in your own family,” she said.
When asked what she hoped others learned from her brother’s witness, Sr. Marita said she hoped they would notice the steadfast faith with which he answered the call of God and gave his last breath serving others.
“It goes way back to his ordination card, which said: ‘For myself I am a Christian, for the sake of others I am a priest,’” she said.
“I feel like he really lived that out. I think young people today don’t know if they’re called to the priesthood or religious life, but we have to listen to the first call – come follow me – and then every day continue to follow him and hear that call from him.”
Fr. Wolf echoed her sentiments.
“It was his yes to what he was called to,” he said, “that manifests itself with his desire to remain there and to serve the people.”
“But it began when he said yes to his first invitation to vocation, when he said yes even after failing out of seminary, when he said yes at his ordination, and when he said yes to going to the mission and his yes to remain there after all the other Oklahomans had left.”
Fr. Rother will be beatified Sept. 23 at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City. The Mass will be celebrated by Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and concelebrated by Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City.
It will likely be a fitting celebration for a life of most unlikely circumstances.
[…]
Perhaps the legion powers that be should be barred from spreading and imposing their ideological bromides until they’ve been vaccinated with sodium pentothal. But, who knows, they might be allergic.
I suppose if she also refuses to use Tylenol, Advil, Motrin, Aleve, Sudafed, Benadryl, Claritin, Robitussin, Mucinex, Tums, Maalox, Colace, Ex-Lax, Pepto-Bismol, Albuterol, Azithromycin, Lidocaine, and Hydroxychloroquine, she has a case. But that case would be personal religious observance, not Roman Catholic
Remedies you mention are to treat discomfort or disease. Covid vaccines are aimed at preventing disease.
Roman Catholics value life, her position in relation to not injecting aborted fetuses is God honouring and church affirmed.
With respect
Those remedies have the same testing history as the vaccines.
A myth perpetuated by the ignorant particularly those who rely on the discredited, dishonest, autistic Father Matthew Schneider, LC as a source.
The “Everything Was Tested on HEK” Lie
There is a bit more to the story than that:
.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/lets-get-a-few-things-cleared-up-testing-cell-lines-and-fetal-tissue/
.
I will agree that she really does not have much of a case from the standpoint of being a Roman Catholic. The vaccines are a requirement to attend Mass in some dioscese, unless things have recently changed. And the Pope of course requires it for folks at the Vatican
Seriously? The pope didn’t speak ex cathedra on the “vaccines,” so there is no dogma involved, and he could be wrong.. It remains his opinion rather than a teaching of the Church. Study the Catechism, please.
And the Vatican has also made a clear case on the basis of nonproximity using Thomist logic.
Yeah, seriously.
.
I really do not care of the Pope spoke ex cathedra or not concerning the vaccines. The fact remains–the Vatican has imposed them on employees and visitors alike. That may have changed recently with the wanning on Omicron, but there are a number of articles on that fact. There are also articles on a couple of diocese requiring the vaccine of priests or employees, or for in-peron Mass attendance, etc.
.
Her case will be tried in a secular court, and were I a secular judge, I suppose I would have to look at this and say “Your own relious authorities/superiors mandate this vaccine for this or that; but you say your religion forbids it? Appeal denied.”
.
And that is reality, and a mighty sick one at that. I feel for this nun. What has been done, and is being done, is wrong. It is a loss for everyone involved.
The vaccines(sic)
The experimental, mRNA gene therapy injections aren’t vaccines. People need to stop referring to them as such.
You frequently appear here to demonstrate a willful ignorance of the Catholic religion, not to mention a hostility towards its values. You might be more comfortable at the NCR, the silly one.
No one is obligated to cooperate with an intrinsic evil, including the evil of genetic altering serums fraudulently promoted as “vaccines” and immorally derived from the intentional destruction of innocent life.
This would be fake news. As of late, I’ve been commenting on political matters. When I look around, being anti-violence and pro-truth is more of a religious value than Russia apologism, and the promotion of falsehoods. I am sure that being in disagreement is unsettling.
On this thread I merely pointed to a list of commonly used medications with the same remote cooperation. I think a person can state firmly, “I don’t want to do what they’re telling me to do.” Such persons often violate speed limits on roads, safety protocols at work, or receive Communion when they are told they shouldn’t or can’t.
Now, if Sister Byrne opts for non-pharma remedies for headaches, inflammation, and other routine hiccups, her personal stance is consistent. Any Catholic anti-vaxxer who uses ExLax but clings to the remote cooperation principle, that person is treading close to hypocrisy.
To complete the distancing from cooperation, I recommend declining to buy anything made in China. Moral principles are good things, even when they run against the grain of one’s friends and associates. What else is there to be said? Buy North American herbs for aches, pains, and constipation.
If this special lady is prevented from her healing ministry, her patients are the poorer. If she states she is unvaccinated and patients have no qualms, then let her practice! Ultimately God is our protector. Though vaccinated, I would not have taken the vaccine had I known stem cells were used from an aborted fetus.
Her principled stand exalts God and informs her patients. May the Lord bless her.
Proverbs 6:16-19 There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
Acts 21:31-32 And as they were seeking to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. He at once took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. And when they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.
Psalm 82:4 Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
A person of character is a great blessing to the church, through fidelity and their godly activity.
And, the “vaccinated” can contract and transmit the virus.
Just a small correction: Sister Deirdre is not a “nun (cloistered)”. She is a “Sister”. https://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2009/03/19/whats-the-difference-between-sisters-and-nuns/
Press on, Sister Dede!
Hey Sister, (nun) try some Circumspect Analysis on your situation. Is it smarter to have medical people vaccinated, so they may not infect their patients? I’ll help you: The answer is yes. ALWAYS look at the other side of an argument before opposing it. This is a policy issue. Don’t take it personal.
The vaccine does not prevent infection or transmission of the SC2 virus. It might help reduce symptoms.
.
There is no justification for any mandate for anyone, by anyone, for this vaccine. Including for our medical professionals.
This mandate can’t see the forest for the trees.
The Epoch times recently had an article by a scientist that Omnicron actually did more to eventually ebb the pandemic than the vaccine.
Jews?
I encountered a “Catholic” friend in the grocery store this past week, and in our conversation, I mentioned that I have not been vaccinated because of the connection all the “vaccines” have to abortion. She became adamant and actually strident in her statement that the “vaccines,” according to her immunologist daughter-in-law, had no connection to abortion. Really? Even the USCCB said that the abortion connection of all the “vaccines” was “remote,” clearly acknowledging the connection and recommending that Catholics choose some over others because the abortion connection was “greater” in some than in others. (My response is that there is no statute of limitations on murder). The only persons who can judge anyone’s conscience in any regard are that person and God. The United States government was established by colonists seeking religious freedom. I applaud Sister Dede and pray that her lawsuit is successful.
It basically revolves around governance not acknowledging the science about natural immunity. Why the heavy push for vaccines and total disregard for the effectiveness of natural immunity? big $$$ maybe?
This is definitely a control issue with $$$ directing the power over the peasants. The mandates are enacted irrespective of the facts at hand. A moral rejection is not even necessary, as an intellectually honest assessment of the ‘science’ easily dismisses any argument promoting these mandates. It’s unnatural for tyrants to relinquish power once gained. Thank God for regular election opportunities; pray that they are truly ‘regular’ in the true sense of the word.
Hopefully the following is true:
BREAKING: Sr Dede Byrne’s medical license reinstated and vaccine exemption granted
Good.
.
I hope a few bishops take note that rescind their own unjust mandates over their priests and flocks.
If there is one life that cannot be saved (eg. a brain dead patient on life support or a recently aborted foetus), I would have thought our creator would smile favourably upon us if we were to save one little piece of those lives (eg. a whole kidney or a single kidney cell) to save the life of another by kidney transplantation or the lives of millions by the establishment of a kidney cell line to be used in medical research[eg. HEK-293 from which Astra Seneca Covid -19 vaccine comes]. After all, Christ himself taught, ‘There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for another’.(John:15.13) He really meant it as evidenced in the sacrifice of his own earthly life for all others. Perhaps the good nun-doctor is in need of a refresher course at Medical School and of the exhortation to look for the good that comes as a gift from her God in the depths of the bad. Great good came from Christ’s terrible, unethical, human death. Why not from the deaths of we mere mortals?? Being anti-abortion should not be a bar to seeing evil defeated by the ascendance of some good.