One of Newman’s own, ASC Sister Marita Rother ‘62, is the sister of a future saint: Blessed Father Stanley Francis Rother.
Father Rother was beatified on Sept. 23, 2017, making him a “blessed” and one step closer to sainthood — 36 years after he was martyred while serving in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala.
Answering the call
Born and raised in Okarche, Oklahoma, Father Rother and Sister Marita were the two eldest children of four raised on a farm. There, they attended Holy Trinity School and Holy Trinity Church.
“He was just a normal guy,” Sister Marita said. “He was well-liked by people.”
Despite being a regular country boy growing up in the Catholic Church, there were small ways he stood out among his peers.
“If somebody wanted or needed help, he seemed to be the one that was there to do it,” she said.
Both siblings ultimately entered religious life, though without planning it together.
“It was separately,” Sister Marita said. “I don’t know if he told my mother first or if I did — about the same time, really.”
After being ordained in 1963, Father Rother served as a priest in Okarche before he was sent to Guatemala for a mission trip.
A shepherd in Guatemala
Father Rother immersed himself in the life of the Tz’utujil people. Despite struggling with learning Latin during his years in the seminary, he sought to learn their language and eventually translated the New Testament and Mass for them.
Over his 13 years in Santiago Atitlán, he helped with agriculture and irrigation systems using his skills from being raised on a farm, and developed projects for a hospital, school and radio station in the area. It wasn’t until the rising conflicts of the Guatemalan Civil War that he was urged to leave the country.
He even wrote a letter home in 1980, describing the violent situation:
“This is one of the reasons I have for staying in the face of physical harm. The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger,” he said.
After learning his name was on a death list, Father Rother returned to Oklahoma — but his stay was short-lived.
Sister Marita recalls a conversation he had with their father while home.
“He was standing, looking out at the little land that we had and said, ‘What would you say if I go back?’ and dad said, ‘It’s your choice. You have to make your own choice with your life.’”
He made his decision that same year, returning to Guatemala in May of 1981. He was there for three months before he was shot to death on July 28 in his rectory.
The aftermath
“I got a phone call from dad, and I never had got phone calls from dad,” Sister Marita said. “The first thing he said was, ‘They got him.’ I said, ‘Got him? Got what? What do you mean?’ And then he told me they had taken his life.”
ASC Sister Fran Schumer said that Father Rother’s death was an attempt to silence him, but it did the opposite.
“The people who killed him thought they were silencing him, and yet his life speaks louder and to more people today,” she said. “Evil does not win even when it thinks it’s going to.”
The investigation into Father Rother’s beatification began in 2007, but was granted for approval in 2015. He was beatified finally on Sept. 23, 2017, in Oklahoma City.
Sister Marita said she never expected that for her brother.
“I had no thought at all that that would come to be,” she said. “It’s not something you dream about. If he was as gentle with the people he worked with as he was with our family, I can see why.”
Sister Marita continues to share her brother’s story with quiet pride.
“We do not need a first-class relic for Father Stan because we already have her,” Schumer joked. “They share the same DNA.”
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