Faith, Farm Prepared Father Rother for Guatemala

By Eileen Dugan
The Sooner Catholic

Sister Marita Rother, A.S.C., Father Stanley Rother’s sister, wants people to remember her brother as one who would never back down from a difficult situation or take the easy way out. “He has been a tremendous inspiration to me in that he lived his commitment to the fullest,” she said. “He followed in Jesus’ footsteps all the way to Calvary, and, there, he laid down his life for the people he loved and served.”

According to Sister Marita, her brother was quiet, had a good sense of humor, and knew how to enjoy life. They did most things together as a family when they were young. When they grew older, after high school, they both left home the same year to pursue their separate commitments to the Lord: he, to the priesthood, and she, to the religious life as an Adorers of the Blood of Christ Sister.

From then on their time together was limited, except for the month Sister Marita spent working with other Sisters from her community at Santiago Atitlan, the mission Father Rother helped to shepherd in Guatemala. Okarche statue of Father Rother

“This was a great time to see Stan in action, getting to know him in a different way. The people at the mission were very important to Stan, and he was always available to them - consoling them at the loss of a child, working on a broken-down vehicle that one of them had, playing with the children, meeting with groups who came to talk with him. I was amazed that he always would take time for them ....he was so caught up in what was important in their lives,” Sister Marita said.

 “What really let his people know how much he cared for them was when he could speak to them in their language. He was accepted by them and in some ways as one of them,” Sister Marita said. “When I went back there after his death, it was still evident how much they loved him.”

Sister is not sure why her brother became a priest. His teachers at Holy Trinity School thought he was “good priest material”, but Stan never talked to her about it, she said. He did like to serve Mass and respected the priests of their parish. But when the time came to choose subjects for high school, her brother enrolled in the Future Farmers of America and did not take Latin, which would have helped him in the seminary.

His decision to go to Guatemala also surprised her. “I was working in a school in Nebraska...when I heard he was assigned there. I had to look it up on the map since I was not acquainted with its whereabouts,” Sister said.

Sister Marita said her brother knew he was in danger, “...but he had no intention of running from it. His people were more important to him than the danger he lived with. In January 1981, during a short visit I had with him, he said he could not leave his people. He knew this had happened in another place [a priest had left another mission], and the people felt abandoned. He said he couldn’t do that.

“In his Christmas letter to the Archdiocese he said, ‘A shepherd does not run at the first sign of danger’. This says so much about his relationship with his people and his intention to be there for them when they, too, were in danger,” Sister said.

“Stan always trusted completely in what God had planned for him. That deep faith that was nurtured during his childhood and young life...kept him faithful to the end, Sister said.

“My brother’s heart remains in Guatemala. After he died, my parents wanted the body returned to the United States. The Indians [at the mission] were reluctant to let the body leave. They wanted to keep it with them. An agreement was reached. My dad said they could keep my brother’s heart because that was where his heart was [with the Indians in Guatemala]. His body was returned to Okarche, Oklahoma for burial in Holy Trinity Cemetery.”

Father Rother’s heart, wrapped in the bloody gauze used to sop up his blood, is buried in the sanctuary of the parish church at Santiago Atitlan. “Father Francisco” was the name by which the Indians knew Father Stanley Francis Rother. They often come to the church to remember him, and many who come are named “Francisco” in his honor.

Father Rother’s brother, Tom recalls that his brother was “reserved, someone who could do a lot around the farm.” He liked to run their father’s bulldozer, and because he was the oldest, he was the only one allowed to run the combine, Tom said.

“Stan wasn’t the type to go out a lot, and he didn’t need to have things nice. He felt more at ease with the people at the mission than with the high rollers in Oklahoma City. He was just the ‘common ole Joe’,” Tom said.    “And the Tzutuhil loved him.

 “Because of his beard, they looked on him like one of the apostles, especially since most of the pictures they had seen of the apostles showed them with beards. They looked on him as someone sent to them by God himself.

“Stan went to Guatemala because he felt he could do more good down there than he could in Oklahoma, and he knew he was in danger. When he came back to Oklahoma in 1981, he told us he was on a ‘hit list’. We tried to talk him out of going back, but we couldn’t.  We had to let him do what he was going to do,” Tom said.

Harold Wittrock, a first cousin and former classmate of Stan Rother’s at Holy Trinity School in Okarche, remembers Father as an “ordinary student, but with a special kindness about him”, someone who related well to the other students and was elected president of Okarche’s chapter of the Future Farmers of America. After graduation, he recalls his cousin searching for what he wanted to do with his life and deciding on the priesthood.

Growing up in the farming community of Okarche, Stan Rother possessed farming know-how. Also, before going to Guatemala, he had worked as the pastor of several small, rural parishes in Oklahoma. When he heard of the great need for priests in Guatemala, he was interested. He realized that his farming and pastoring background would be helpful to the people of rural Guatemala, Wittrock said.

“On trips back to the states, he would buy old farm equipment and bring it back to the mission to help the people there. As he worked with the Indians, he fell in love with them.

“The government in Guatemala didn’t like it when Father Rother defended the Indians’ rights. Most of the priests down there were very careful about what they said. Father Rother didn’t like the government taking advantage of his people and was not afraid to say so. He related that the government was really repressive. He told things the way they were,” Wittrock said.

 “The people there were appreciative of whatever Father Rother did for them. He knew he was in danger, but when he came back here, he was so restless, we knew he couldn’t leave them all there. He said, ‘I just have to go back. If things go badly, it will be God’s will.’”

Harold Wittrock was instrumental in having the statue of Father Rother built in Okarche. “I have a friend, an artist, John Gooden in Kingfisher. I asked him if he would be interested in making a sculpture of Father Rother. I also gave him a copy of the book, The Shepherd Cannot Run: Letters of Stanley Rother Missionary and Martyr, edited by Father David Monahan,” Wittrock said.

 Pictured on the cover of the book are Father Rother and a tiny parishioner. His compassion for her and her awe and appreciation for him are evident in the photo.  “The picture says it all,” Wittrock said. “We used this picture as the subject of the sculpture. Some day Stan will be declared a saint, and this statue will symbolize him.”

Gooden read the book and was very impressed with Father Rother. He agreed to make the sculpture, using a new process that minimizes cost and “lasts forever”, Wittrock said. Father Stephen Bird, the pastor at Holy Trinity parish at the time, went up to Kingfisher to check out other sculptures done by Gooden. Seeing several, including one that used the same process Gooden had mentioned to Wittrock, Father Bird realized Gooden was an excellent artist. The statue of Father Rother was designed, and “some small knockoffs of it were made to sell to the public to raise money to help pay for the sculpture. There are some of these small copies in Father Bird’s office and the Archbishop’s office,” Wittrock said.

The finished, larger-than-life-sized statue of Father Rother and the little Guatemalan girl by John Gooden was dedicated in October 2003 at the Centennial of Father Rother’s home parish, Holy Trinity Church in Okarche.