1. Stanley Francis Rother was an American Catholic priest from Oklahoma who was murdered in Guatemala in 1981.
20 Facts About Stanley Rother
1. 2.
Stanley Rother had worked as a missionary priest there since 1968.
3.
Stanley Rother held several parish assignments as a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City from 1963 to 1968 before being assigned to Guatemala.
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On December 1,2016, Pope Francis confirmed that Rother had died a martyr, murdered for his faith, and Rother was beatified on September 23,2017, in Oklahoma City.
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Stanley Rother is the first US-born priest and martyr to be beatified by the Catholic Church, and the second person to be beatified on American soil after the New Jersey-born nun Miriam Teresa Demjanovich in 2014.
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Stanley Francis Rother was born on March 27,1935, in Okarche, one of four children of Franz Rother and Gertrude Smith, who farmed near that Oklahoma town.
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Stanley Rother was baptized on March 29,1935, in Okarche's Holy Trinity Church by Father Zenon Steber.
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Stanley Rother decided to become a priest after completing high school at Holy Trinity School.
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Stanley Rother studied at Saint John Seminary and then Assumption Seminary in San Antonio, Texas.
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Stanley Rother served as a sacristan, groundskeeper, bookbinder, plumber, and gardener.
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Stanley Rother served as a parochial vicar in various parishes around Oklahoma: Saint William in Durant, Saint Francis Xavier and the Holy Family Cathedral in Tulsa, and Corpus Christi in Oklahoma City.
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Stanley Rother served in Santiago Atitlan from 1968 until his death.
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Stanley Rother supported a radio station located on the mission property, which transmitted daily lessons in language and mathematics.
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Stanley Rother was a prominent figure in the community, owing to his light complexion as well as his habit of smoking tobacco in a pipe.
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Some of his catechists and parishioners would disappear and later be found dead, their corpses showing signs of beating and torture; Stanley Rother knew all this upon returning to Guatemala in May 1981.
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Stanley Rother opened the door, and a struggle ensued as Bocel fled; Stanley Rother was shot twice in the head.
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Stanley Rother was one of 10 priests murdered in Guatemala that year.
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Stanley Rother's remains were flown back to Oklahoma and buried in Holy Trinity Cemetery in his hometown on August 3,1981.
19.
On December 1,2016, his beatification received approval from Pope Francis who confirmed that Stanley Rother had been killed "in odium fidei".
20.
Stanley Rother was beatified on September 23,2017, at the Cox Convention Center, with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the CCS, presiding on the pope's behalf.