Thread by @DouayRheims1

28th JULY: BLESSED STANLEY ROTHER, PRIEST AND MARTYR

~thread~
1. In the early morning hours of July 28, 1981, Fr Stanley Rother was murdered in the rectory of the church of Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala.
#Blessed #StanleyRother #July28 #OTD #CatholicChurch #Christian #history

2. The church in this picturesque town had been adopted as a mission by Fr Rother’s Diocese of Oklahoma City-Tulsa. For Fr Rother,who was especially good at learning languages, his first challenge was to master the Mayan dialect of the Tzutuhil people. Having passed this hurdle

3. he quickly won their trust and respect by his complete dedication to the needs of the community. The pastoral work alone was almost overwhelming – sacraments, the training of catechists, the constant visits to the sick, providing food and medicine and other help. Sunday

4. Masses were attended by up to three thousand five hundred people.

For years Fr Rother and his flock were untouched by the violence and repression that was a fixture of history. Eventually one of his catechists was kidnapped and Fr Rother’s own name appeared on a death-list.

5. On July 28 three masked men slipped into his room at night. From the struggle that ensued it appears that their intention was to kidnap the priest, and Fr Rother, unarmed, put up a fight. He was shot twice in the head.
#CatholicTwitter #GoodPriest #Christian #martyr

6. He was in the truest sense a pastor whose life was a constant self-giving. His body was returned to Oklahoma; his heart was interred in the church in Santiago Atitlan.
(Excerpts from “Far East”, Magazine of the Columban Missionaries, issue July/August 2013)