As we continue to commemorate 250 years of the United States of America, Father Dave welcomes author and journalist María Ruiz Scaperlanda to discuss Blessed Stanley Rother, an American on the path to sainthood. María is the promoter of his cause for canonization, author of his biography, and a contributor featured in the upcoming movie “American Martyr: The Stanley Rother Story” coming to theaters later this month.
María details Blessed Stanley’s upbringing in Oklahoma, highlighting that he attended seminary first in Texas and later in Maryland. “He almost didn’t become a priest. He flunked out of the first year theology and was sent home with a note from the seminary [that said he should] consider a different vocation,” she begins, and notes that he found his way with support from the bishop. “He became a priest, worked in Oklahoma for five years, and then headed to the missions in Guatemala.”
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She explains that Blessed Stanley went to Guatemala as part of Pope John XXIII’s request for the Church in North America to send missionaries to Central and South America. Blessed Stanley served in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, ministering to the native tribe of the Tz’utujil, who are descendants of the Mayans. “The first team sent was 12 people, including doctors, dentists, educators, and a number of priests,” María says. “He was the only one that became fluent in [the tribe’s language] Tz’utujil. I think God heard his desire and showered upon him the grace he needed to learn Spanish and become fluent in Tz’utujil because they still today speak that language.”
Father Dave notes, “Many people who don’t have any academic issues or problems getting a Master’s in theology do struggle with learning languages. It kind of goes to show you that there are different gifts and not everybody is cut from the same cloth.” María replies, “For him, connecting with the people meant wanting to celebrate Mass in their language and to hear the word of God in their language. He had to work at it, but he did it.”
“Father Stan is a guy for the ordinary people, for everyone who has flunked out of something or struggled with learning something and then found their calling; all things come together,” she continues. “Above all, he’s somebody who knew the importance of presence. His gift to the Mayans there was to do the same things that he grew up having: family, farming, faith. So he gets to this place, and is with people who also farm, are centered on their families, and the Church [became] the center of their faith. It’s just beautiful.”
They discuss events toward the end of his life leading to his martyrdom. “After 13 years in the mission, he was the only one left there of the Oklahoma missionaries. At that point in time, much of Central America really was [consumed] with civil war and lots of violence, and it finally reached this remote village, Santiago Atitlan,” María says. He returned to Oklahoma for safety, but soon returned to minister to his people saying that “the shepherd cannot run.” He was martyred in the rectory several months following his return in 1981.
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Blessed Stanley is the first martyr and priest from the United States to be beatified. In telling his story, María describes how actor Martin Sheen became involved in the project through a connection from Sister Rose Pacatte. “She volunteered to bring a manuscript of a possible movie…Martin Sheen does not do email or text, so we get a phone call from him and he says, ‘Dump the manuscript…What you need to do is do a documentary, and I want to help.’”
“He was just very much invested and loves the story,” she says, noting that Martin narrates the documentary. “Not in a million years would I have come up with Martin Sheen narrating the film. But God has a much bigger imagination than I do.”
