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Oklahoma City, Okla., Mar 13, 2017 / 10:37 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Father Stanley Rother, the Oklahoma-born martyr who served as a priest in Guatemala, will be beatified in Oklahoma City on Sept. 23, 2017.

The beatification announcement was made by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City on March 13. Fr. Rother was a priest of the archdiocese. The beautification Mass will take place at 10 a.m. at the Cox Convention Center.

In December 2016, Pope Francis officially acknowledged Fr. Rother’s martyrdom, making him the first recognized martyr to have been born in the United States.

Fr. Rother was from the unassuming town of Okarche, Okla., where the parish, school and farm were the pillars of community life. He went to the same school his whole life and lived with his family until he left for seminary.

Surrounded by good priests and a vibrant parish life, Stanley felt God calling him to the priesthood from a young age. But despite a strong calling, Stanley would struggle in the seminary, failing several classes and even out of one seminary before graduating from Mount St. Mary’s seminary in Maryland.

Hearing of Stanely’s struggles, Sister Clarissa Tenbrick, his 5th grade teacher, wrote him to offer encouragement, reminding him that the patron of all priests, St. John Vianney, also struggled in seminary.

“Both of them were simple men who knew they had a call to the priesthood and then had somebody empower them so that they could complete their studies and be priests,” Maria Scaperlanda, author of The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run, a biography of the martyr, told CNA in an interview last year.

“And they brought a goodness, simplicity and generous heart with them in (everything) they did.”

When Stanley was still in seminary, St. John XXIII asked the Churches of North America to send assistance and establish missions in Central America. Soon after, the dioceses of Oklahoma City and Tulsa established a mission in Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala, a poor rural community of mostly indigenous people.

A few years after he was ordained, Fr. Stanley accepted an invitation to join the mission team, where he would spend the next 13 years of his life.

When he arrived to the mission, the Tz’utujil Mayan Indians in the village had no native equivalent for Stanley, so they took to calling him Padre Francisco, after his baptismal name of Francis.

The work ethic Fr. Stanley 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, which was used for catechesis to the even more remote villages.

“What I think is tremendous is how God doesn’t waste any details,” Scaperlanda said. “That same love for the land and the small town where everybody helps each other, all those things that he learned in Okarche is exactly what he needed when he arrived in Santiago.”

The beloved Padre Francisco was also known for his kindness, selflessness, joy and attentive presence among his parishioners. Dozens of pictures show giggling children running after Padre Francisco and grabbing his hands, Scaperlanda said.

“It was Father Stanley’s natural disposition to share the labor with them, to break bread with them, and celebrate life with them, that made the community in Guatemala say of Father Stanley, ‘he was our priest,’” she said.

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. Stanley remained steadfast and supportive of his people.

In 1980-1981, the violence escalated to an almost unbearable point. Fr. Stanley was constantly seeing friends and parishioners abducted or killed. In a letter to Oklahoma Catholics during what would be his last Christmas, the priest relayed to the people back home the dangers his mission parish faced daily.

“The reality is that we are in danger. But we don’t know when or what form the government will use to further repress the Church…. Given the situation, I am not ready to leave here just yet… But if it is my destiny that I should give my life here, then so be it…. I don’t want to desert these people, and that is what will be said, even after all these years. There is still a lot of good that can be done under the circumstances.”

He ended the letter with what would become his signature quote:

“The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger. 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 January 1981, in immediate danger and his name on a death list, Fr. Stanley did return to Oklahoma for a few months. But as Easter approached, he wanted to spend Holy Week with his people in Guatemala.

“Father Stanley could not abandon his people,” Scaperlanda said. “He made a point of returning to his Guatemala parish in time to celebrate Holy Week with his parishioners that year – and ultimately was killed for living out his Catholic faith.”

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.

Scaperlanda, who has worked on Fr. Stanley’s cause for canonization, said the priest is a great witness and example: “He fed the hungry, sheltered the homeless, visited the sick, comforted the afflicted, bore wrongs patiently, buried the dead – all of it.”

His life is also a great example of ordinary people being called to do extraordinary things for God, she said.

“(W)hat impacted me the most about Father Stanley’s life was how ordinary it was!” she said.

“I love how simply Oklahoma City’s Archbishop Paul Coakley states it: ‘We need the witness of holy men and women who remind us that we are all called to holiness – and that holy men and women come from ordinary places like Okarche, Oklahoma,’” she said.

“Although the details are different, I believe the call is the same – and the challenge is also the same. Like Father Stanley, each of us is called to say ‘yes’ to God with our whole heart. We are all asked to see the Other standing before us as a child of God, to treat them with respect and a generous heart,” she added.

“We are called to holiness – whether we live in Okarche, Oklahoma, or New York City or Guatemala City.”

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Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, speaks to reporters in the Senate Subway of the U.S. Capitol Building on July 19, 2023, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 27, 2023 / 09:37 am (CNA).
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Denver Newsroom, Nov 18, 2020 / 03:40 pm (CNA).- Two church buildings— one Baptist, one Catholic— were damaged by fires in apparent arson attacks Sunday morning in Brewster, a town in central Washington.

Sacred Heart Catholic Church suffered some fire damage near the sanctuary from an incendiary device dropped through a broken window early Nov. 15. New Testament Baptist Church, located a block away, suffered more serious fire damage to its interior the same morning.

Investigators have deemed the fire at Sacred Heart to be intentional, police say. The police have not yet made the same pronouncement about the fire at the Baptist church, but the investigation is ongoing.

Father Pedro Bautista, Sacred Heart’s pastor, told CNA that most of Sacred Heart’s parishioners are Hispanic, and that the community is “fearful” after the incident.

“This is just adding more stress to the lives of the people,” he said.

Father Bautista said he noticed the fire when he came to open the church on Sunday morning. At that point, the local fire department was already battling the fire at the nearby Baptist church, which appears to have been set around 2 am, and was discovered around 5 am.

The fire damaged a chair and some carpet near the sanctuary at Sacred Heart. Father Bautista said the fire department and the police were surprised that the fire did not do more damage.

The fire at the Baptist church did not entirely destroy the building, but the damage to the interior was significant enough that the building may be beyond salvage, local media reported.

Father Bautista said he left his card with the fire chief— who attends the Baptist church that burned— asking him to tell the church’s pastor that they are welcome to use Sacred Heart’s parish hall as a gathering space until their church is repaired.

“Honestly, that was my first thought. I wanted to talk to them and offer them [our] building. I didn’t realize [someone] had burned our church too,” he laughed.

The priest said he does not know who could have set the fires, and chose not to speculate. The investigation is still in its early stages, he noted, and he said he does not want to feed rumors in the community.

He said he considers his parish to be blessed that their insurance will likely cover the incident, and that he was still able to celebrate 2pm Sunday Mass the day of the fire.

“People were comforted that we were still able to have the Eucharist, that is a big statement for the community,” he said.

The Brewster Police Department said in a Nov. 16 statement that the two fires remain under investigation. The police have not announced any suspects.

Brewster PD Chief Marcos Ruiz declined to comment further to CNA, adding that the department does not have plans to release additional information on the active investigation.

The Diocese of Spokane requested prayers for the Sacred Heart community in a tweet on Sunday. The diocese did not comment further by press time.

Numerous attacks on Catholic churches and art in the U.S. have been documented throughout 2020— including three separate desecrations of Marian statues in the same weekend in July.
At least three vandalism attacks have happened against images of Mary this year in New York City alone.

The Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver was defaced with graffiti during a protest June 1, with rioters spray-painting slogans such as “GOD IS DEAD” and “PEDOFILES” [sic] on the church’s exterior.

A statue of the Virgin Mary was beheaded in Gary the evening of July 2 or morning of July 3.

On July 11, a man was arrested after he reportedly admitted to crashing a minivan into Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Ocala, Florida, and then setting it on fire while parishioners were inside. No one was injured.

Also on July 11, a 249-year-old California mission founded by St. Junipero Serra burned in a fire being investigated as arson.

The same day, a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was attacked and beheaded at a parish in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Three days later, vandals beheaded a statue of Christ outside Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Southwest Miami-Dade County, the same day that a statue of the Blessed Virgin at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Colorado Springs was tagged with red paint in an act of vandalism.

At Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Bloomingburg, New York, a monument to unborn children killed by abortion was knocked over the weekend of July 18.

In late August, vandals beheaded a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Holy Family Parish in Citrus Heights, California. A statue of the Ten Commandments, placed at the parish “in dedication to all those who have lost their life through abortion” was grafittied with a swastika.

In September, a man went on an hours-long vandalism spree at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Tioga, Louisiana, breaking at least six windows, beating several metal doors, and breaking numerous statues around the parish grounds. He was later arrested and charged.
The same month, vandals toppled a statue of St. Therese outside St. Therese of the Child Jesus Catholic Parish in Midvale, Utah.

Later in September, a man was charged for smashing a 90-year-old statue of Christ inside St. Patrick Cathedral in El Paso.

Also in September, a man wielded a baseball bat on the grounds of a Catholic seminary in Texas and damaged a crucifix and several doors, but caused no harm to seminary students.

St. Peter Chaldean Catholic Cathedral in El Cajon on Sept. 25 was defaced with graffiti depicting “pentagrams, upside down crosses, white power, swastikas,” as well as slogans such as “Biden 2020,” and “BLM”.

The same evening, Our Mother of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, also in El Cajon, was similarly attacked, with the pastor discovering spray-painted swastikas on an exterior wall of the church the next day.

In mid-October, vandals knocked down a statue of Mary and a statue of Christ outside St. Germaine Catholic Church in Prescott Valley, Arizona, about 90 miles north of Phoenix.
Throughout the summer, numerous depictions of St. Junipero Serra, mostly in California, have been forcibly pulled down by mobs of protestors.

A crowd of about 100 people tore down another St. Junípero Serra statue in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park the evening of June 19. Rioters pulled down a statue of St. Junipero Serra in Sacramento July 4.

A Oct. 12 protest at Mission San Rafael Arcangel began peacefully but then turned violent, as participants defaced another St. Junipero Serra statue with red paint before dragging it to the ground with nylon straps and ropes. The local district attorney ultimately charged five individuals with felony vandalism in connection with the incident.

Abroad, a recent report chronicled more than 500 hate crimes against Christians in Europe in 2019, included attacks against Catholic priests, arson attacks on Catholic churches, the destruction of images of the Virgin Mary, vandalism of a pregnancy counseling center, and the theft of consecrated Eucharistic hosts from tabernacles.

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