Shot for Staying With His Flock, After Being Kicked Out of Seminary | Blessed Stanley Rother

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At 1.30 in the morning, three men broke into
a small room next to a church in the Guatemalan

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mountains. Inside was an American priest. He
had been warned more than once, and people

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he loved had begged him to stay in Oklahoma,
where it was safe. He came back anyway. By

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sunrise, his own parishioners would find him
on the floor of that room. This is the story

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of a farm boy from Oklahoma. who became Guatemala's
priest and never once ran.

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Hi, my name is John O'Connor and this is Everyday
Saints. This is episode 22. If this is your

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first time stopping by, consider yourself invited.
Grab a seat, something to drink, and get comfortable.

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A new Saints story lands here every Thursday.
Now, this week we are doing a first on this

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show. Today's Saint isn't officially a Saint
yet. He's one step away. His name is Stanley

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Rother, and if you have never heard of him,
You are not alone, most people haven't. Stanley

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Rother was born in 1935 on a farm outside of
Ocarchee, Oklahoma, right in the worst stretch

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of the Dust Bowl years. His beginning overlapped
with the actual Black Blizzards, the kind of

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dust storms that blotted out the sun for days
at a time. Now, I lived in Oklahoma myself

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for a couple of years, Tulsa to be exact, and
of all the states I have visited, Oklahoma

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is my second favorite state behind Iowa. But,
Ocarche is nothing like Tulsa. It's flat, open,

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hard-looking land about 30 minutes northwest
of Oklahoma City, the better part of two hours

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from where I used to live. By the time Stanley
was old enough to actually remember anything,

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the worst had passed and the rain had come back.
But, the land still carried the scars and so

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did the people. A lot of families around Okarche
had already packed up and left for good during

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those years. Okies headed west chasing anything
better than what they left behind. The Rothers

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didn't leave. They stayed on hard land that
had already broken plenty of other families

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and they kept farming it. He was the oldest
of four kids from German Catholic stock going

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back generations. He did chores, played sports.
served at the altar on Sundays. Nothing about

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his childhood looked anything like the beginning
of a saint story. By high school, he knew he

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wanted to be a priest, so he went to seminary,
and he almost didn't make it. See, Stanley

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struggled with Latin badly enough that his first
seminary asked him to leave. Think about that

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for a second. The language of the church, the
language every priest was expected to know

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cold, was the one thing standing between Stanley
and the life he felt called to. Most stories

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would end right there. A young man's calling
over before it even really started. But here's

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the thing. The guy running that seminary, they
call him the rector, kind of like a principal

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really, he saw something in Stanley worth a
second chance. So he picked up a pen and wrote

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straight to Stanley's diocese. That's just the
local branch of the church. the folks back

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home who were in charge of training him. Basically,
he was asking them for a favor. Give the kid

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another shot, a different school, this time
up in Maryland. They said, yes, Stanley went,

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and this time it worked. He was ordained a priest
in 1963. A kid who couldn't pass Latin, now

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a Catholic priest. Nobody watching that struggle
could have guessed where it would eventually

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lead him. In the 1960s, Pope John XXIII put
out a call for missionaries, specifically to

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Latin America. The Oklahoma Diocese answered,
adopting a mission in the town called Santiago

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Atitlan in the Guatemalan highlands on the shore
of a lake by the same name. It served a people

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called the Tzutujil, descendants of the Maya,
who had lived around that lake for generations.

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Stanley volunteered. In 1968, he and another
priest loaded up to Stanley's own Ford Bronco

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and drove it all the way from Oklahoma, 2,000
miles, to a village most Americans couldn't

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find on a map. The people there had trouble
pronouncing Stanley, so they gave him a new

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name instead, Padre Aplas, Father Francis in
their own language. Here's the part that still

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surprises people. The same man who flunked Latin
in seminary, learned Spanish once he got to

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Guatemala and then he learned something even
harder. Soto-Hil wasn't even a written language

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yet. No textbook, no dictionary, nothing.
Stanley learned to speak it anyway, well enough

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to preach in it. Then he did something almost
nobody had ever done for that language. He

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helped write it down for the first time and
translated the entire New Testament into it.

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Just think about that for a second. I'm pondering
it for a second as someone that's struggled,

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and I mean struggled through French class. And
here he was, a farm boy who couldn't get through

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Latin class, and that became one of the people
responsible for giving an entire indigenous

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language its first written form and its first
Bible. Just simply wow. By 1975, he'd become

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the real leader of the whole mission effort.
Other priests and volunteers rotated in and

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out over the years, but Stanley stayed. Now,
Guatemala was poor, especially where Stanley

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was. His parishioners lived in one-room huts,
farming small plots of land and barely getting

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by. Stanley didn't just preach to them on Sundays
and leave, he ate meals with them. He visited

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the sick and helped them find medical care when
they had none. He helped start a radio station

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on the mission property, one that broadcasts
mass and also daily lessons in language and

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math for kids who had no school otherwise. He
helped build an actual hospital in a nearby

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village called Panaba, and he helped start a
farmer's co-op so people could pool their resources

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and survive the lean years together. None of
this was in his job description. Nobody ordained

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him to build hospitals. or run a co-op. He just
kept noticing what his people needed and kept

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figuring out how to get it to them. And then
there's the bulldozer. Stanley grew up on a

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farm and he knew how to work land. So when his
parishioners needed fields cleared, he didn't

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hire it out. He got on a bulldozer himself.
Nine and a half hours straight one day. Seven

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in the morning until 430 in the afternoon only
stopping for mass and then he got back on and

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kept going This was a Catholic priest from Oklahoma
Clearing farmland by hand for people who weren't

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his own family in a country that wasn't his
own Nobody told him to do that. He just did

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it That's not really a resume. It's a pattern
a man who kept choosing the harder more physical

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more personal way to love the people in front
of him. Now, I want you to hold on to that

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pattern. It matters for what happens next. Around
1980, Guatemala's civil war found its way

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to Stanley's Village. The government was fighting
leftist rebels, and the rural poor were caught

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in between, and the Catholic Church, which had
spent years serving those same poor communities,

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became a target. Stanley's own radio station,
the one broadcasting school lessons, was destroyed

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and its station manager was murdered. Catechists,
the teachers who helped Stanley run the parish,

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teaching the faith in villages he couldn't get
to himself, started disappearing along with

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regular parishioners, people he knew personally.
Weeks later, their bodies would just turn up,

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showing signs of torture. When that happened,
Stanley didn't just mourn from a distance.

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He went looking himself, spending hours searching
for the bodies of people who had vanished.

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One time, he walked straight into the local
police station to report a kidnapping. Nothing

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came of it. No investigation. Nobody ever held
accountable. But he went anyway. Stanley wrote

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letters home during this time. In one, he said
Guatemala's government was systematically wiping

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out anyone. who even leaned toward reform. Labor
leaders, moderates, people just trying to

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survive. He kept speaking out about what he
was seeing, and the more he spoke, the more

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direct the threats against him became. Eventually,
his name landed on a death list. Think about

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what that actually means for a second. This
wasn't a soldier or a politician. and he wasn't

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anyone trying to seize power or take a side
in the war. It was a man who ate meals with

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the poor, who cleared their fields on a bulldozer,
who'd spent 13 years learning their language

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just so he could preach to them properly. And
for exactly that, somebody decided he needed

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to die. In January of 1981, Stanley flipped
back to Oklahoma for his own safety. His brother

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Tom asked him a simple question. Why do you
want to go back? It's worth sitting with that

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for a second because most of us in Stanley's
position already know the answer we would give.

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We wouldn't go back. Stanley gave a different
answer, one that's since become the way most

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people remember him. And I quote, the shepherd
cannot run from his flock. Not a long speech,

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not a dramatic declaration. just a plain simple
fact the way he saw it. A shepherd who runs

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isn't a shepherd anymore. In May of 1981, Stanley
went back to Guatemala knowing exactly what

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he was walking into. The letters, the death
list, the bodies he'd spent hours searching

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for. But he went back anyway in time for Holy
Week and Easter with the people he'd given

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13 years of his life to. A parish full of neighbors
who buried their own that year, who needed

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a priest more than they ever had before. That's
not a man swept up in a moment. That's a man

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who looked straight at the cost and paid it
anyway with his eyes wide open. It's July 28th,

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1981, 1.30 in the morning. The village of Santiago,
Atitlan, is asleep. The lake is still. and

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the volcanoes around it are just black shapes
against a slightly less black sky. Inside the

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residence next to the church, Stanley is in
his room when three men, their faces covered,

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break in and find him. What happens next isn't
quiet, and it isn't quick. Stanley fights back.

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This wasn't a man who knelt down and simply
accepted what was coming. the way we sometimes

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picture a martyr's death. By every account of
that night, he struggled with the men who had

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come for him, hard enough that it took a real
effort to stop him. Deciding not to run from

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danger is not the same thing as wanting to die.
He made peace with the risk months earlier

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on that plane ride back, but in that room, in
that moment, he still wanted to live and he

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fought for every second he had left. Nearby,
his parishioners hear the gunshots. They don't

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hide, and they don't wait for daylight. They
run toward the sound, the same instinct Stanley

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himself had shown walking back into the white
country with his name on a death list. Toward

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the danger, not away from it. By the time they
reach the room, it's already over. His own

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people are the ones who find him. Stanley, rather,
is dead, 46 years old. Here's the scale of

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what that single night was actually part of.
Stanley was one of 10 Catholic priests murdered

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in Guatemala that year alone. And on that exact
same day, in that exact same village, government

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troops killed 13 other townspeople and wounded
24 more. Now, his death wasn't an isolated

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tragedy that happened to interrupt an otherwise
peaceful night. It happened inside a massacre.

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Here's what I keep coming back to though. Three
months before that night, Stanley Rather was

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safe. He had a plane ticket, a family in Oklahoma
begging him not to go back, every reasonable

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excuse in the world to stay exactly where he
was. Nobody would have blamed him, not one

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person. He got on that plane anyway, toward
the danger, toward the people who needed him,

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knowing almost certainly what it might cost.
A shepherd who runs, isn't a shepherd anymore.

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Stanley rather never ran. After he died, Stanley's
parishioners made one specific request, that

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his heart stay with them in Guatemala. So it
does. Removed and buried under the altar of

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the very church where he'd served for 13 years,
still there today. His body went home to Oklahoma.

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to a small cemetery in Oak Archie, not far from
the farm where he grew up. For almost 40 years,

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that's where the story seemed to end. A heart
in one country, a body in another, a man divided

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between the two homes that had both claimed
him. Then in 2016, Pope Francis officially

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recognized Stanley as a martyr, and in 2017,
he was beatified in Oklahoma City. 20,000 people

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showed up. And in 2023, something remarkable
happened. The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City

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opened a $50 million shrine in his honor, the
largest Catholic church in the entire state,

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and Stanley's body was moved there. He is now
entombed inside its altar. So here's where

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the story actually stands today. His heart,
still in Guatemala, with the people he chose

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over his own safety. His body now resting beneath
an altar in Oklahoma, visited by over 200,000

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pilgrims a year. Two countries, two homes, one
heart split between both of them exactly the

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way he lived. He's currently known as Blessed
Stanley Rother, one miracle away from full

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sainthood. the church still deciding how to
officially label what the rest of us already

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know happened in his residence attached to the
church back in Guatemala. In the meantime,

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pilgrims keep showing up by the thousands to
a shrine built for a farm boy who once couldn't

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pass a Latin exam. Today's then and now segment.
Stanley Rather's story is from 1981, but...

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The exact same choice he made is still being
made today by people most of us will never

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hear about. Right now there are missionaries,
aid workers, and clergy serving in places the

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rest of us would never set foot in. Parts of
Africa and the Middle East where Christians

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are actively persecuted. Conflict zones where
humanitarian workers get kidnapped or killed

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just for showing up to help. Most of them will
never have a shrine built for them. Most of

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us will never learn their names. They are not
making headlines. They are just doing the quiet,

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dangerous work of staying when staying is the
hard choice and leaving would be the reasonable

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one. Stanley's story isn't really about 1981
Guatemala. It's about a decision that gets

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made quietly by somebody somewhere almost every
single day. We just don't usually hear about

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it until decades later, if we hear about it
at all. All right, back to the porch. I keep

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thinking about that bulldozer. Not the gunshots,
not the masked men, but the bulldozer. Nine

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and a half hours in the heat, clearing land
that wasn't his, for people who weren't his

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family, in a country that wasn't his own. Now,
that's not the scene that gets you canonized.

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Nobody puts a bulldozer in a stained glass window,
but I think it's the real hinge of this whole

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story. Loving people in the big dramatic headline
moment, that's hard, but it's almost simple.

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You know exactly what's being asked of you.
Loving people on a bulldozer for nine hours

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with nobody watching when you could have just
hired it out, that's a different kind of hard.

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And it's the kind most of us actually run into.
You see, most of us will never face a death

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list, and I hope none of us do. But almost all
of us at some point get the bulldozer version

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of that same choice. The unglamorous, exhausting,
nobody's going to write a podcast about it

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version. Showing up for someone when it cost
you a whole Saturday and nobody will ever know

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you did it. Stanley did both, the 9 hour bulldozer
day and the plane ticket back into danger.

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I don't think you get the second one without
a decade of practicing the first. So here's

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what I'm sitting with this week. Where is your
bulldozer? What's the unglamorous, exhausting

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thing that nobody's asking you to do that you
could do anyway for somebody who needs it?

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You don't have to answer that one out loud,
but do answer it to yourself. Just sit with

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it for a second. It is now time for the closing
prayer. Lord, thank you for Stanley. For a

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love that showed up in a church's residence
at gunpoint, and also showed up on a bulldozer

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on an ordinary Tuesday. For anyone facing their
own version of that plane ticket right now,

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give them his kind of plain, stubborn courage.
And for the rest of us facing smaller, quieter

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choices, help us remember that the big moment
and the small one come from the exact same

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place. Amen. Blessed Stanley Rother is recognized
as a patron of those discerning a vocation

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and of missionaries, especially those serving
in dangerous places. His feast day is July

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28th. Well, that is episode 22. If his story
stuck with you, send it to somebody who needs

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reminding that ordinary people are capable of
extraordinary love. Next week, we are back

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to a known saint. One who carried wounds on
his own hands for 50 years and had the Vatican

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itself doubting him for a decade before they
finally believed it. I'm John O'Connor. Thanks

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for sitting on the porch with me and I will
see you next week.