The name of Father Stanley Rother has been submitted to the Vatican for possible canonization to sainthood.
Stanley Rother was a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and was martyred in Guatemala in October 1980. He was warned to leave the country because his life was in danger, but he chose to stay with his people.
This Oklahoma farm boy thought his life belonged to God alone, and it was up to God to call him to judgment whenever He chose.
In all his years among the Indians, Father Rother had seriously avoided controversy. Other American priests in Guatemala considered Father Rother the most conservative of their group.
Time was not on his side. He was caught in the middle of an undeclared civil war that pitted the security forces of then President Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia against leftist guerrillas.
Was Father Rother killed because of hatred of Jesus Christ? Such is the traditional norm of martyrdom. There is little evidence to indicate this was the fact. He was killed because of his love and service to the people of God.
“As long as you did it for the least of my brothers, you did it for me,” Jesus said.
The reason Father Rother’s story is being reported here is that he spent a few years as a student of a Texas seminary, Assumption Seminary in San Antonio.
Canonization processes can go on for a long time. St. Katharine Drexel was canonized 32 years after she died. Padre Antonio Margil de Jesus has been dead since 1726 and has not been canonized yet.
To desire a canonization is one thing. To be inspired by the life of a person is another. Why wait for canonization to be inspired?
Father Rother could have easily returned to the safety of the United States. Instead, he chose to return to serve the people. He certainly knew he could not settle the military situation of Guatemala.
In addition, Father Rother’s road to the priestly life was not easy. Seminarians take heart. Stanley Rother was one time dismissed from the seminary because of his grades in Latin. Now he is being considered for canonization. Father Rother, and the church, have come a long way.
St. Anselm
There was recently a televised political debate from the campus of St. Anselm’s College in New Hampshire. St. Anselm’s college is a Catholic liberal arts college in Manchester, N.H. Its enrollment is about 2,000 students and is staffed and sponsored by the Benedictine Fathers.
St. Anselm is considered one of the great theologians of the church, to be so little known. His combining of faith and reason won him the title of “Father of Scholasticism,” a system of thought adopted by the church since his day.
