It’s a wonder that Blessed Stanley Rother ever became a priest in the first place. A farm boy from a Catholic enclave in rural Okarche, Oklahoma, Stanley had a sturdy work ethic and a resilient spirit as well as deep piety. He was confident in his calling, but he wasn’t a scholar and he hadn’t studied Latin, which was still de rigueur in those days on the eve of Vatican II. After years of struggling for passing grades at Assumption Seminary in San Antonio, Texas, he was asked to leave the formation program.
What did Bishop Victor Reed see in this unpromising student that moved him to go to bat for the young man? How did Stanley wind up attending another seminary, Mount St. Mary’s in Maryland, completing his studies and receiving ordination in 1963? Whatever other factors played a role, in view of what followed, it is not hard to discern the hand of God in Stanley’s ordination during the Council that would play a decisive role in the shape of his future life as well as his 1981 martyr’s death in Guatemala and the devotion that has grown around him.
As with most martyrs, while Fr. Stan may be remembered first of all for how he died, what matters most is how he lived. American Martyr: The Stanley Rother Story is concerned with what matters most.
We expect a documentary like this to offer a blend of archival video and still photography, location shooting, dramatized recreation video, voiceover narration—provided here by Martin Sheen—and interviews with knowledgeable sources. In this case, sources include Sister Marita Rother, ASC, Stan’s sister; biographer María Ruiz Scaperlanda, who served on the historical commission gathering data for Stan’s cause for sainthood; and Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City.
American Martyr rises above expectations in moments of unexpected poignance. A cousin in Okarche chokes up relating the last time he talked to Fr. Stan during a brief return to the U.S. after learning that his name was on a government hit list. Regarding Stan’s intent to return to celebrate Holy Week with his Mayan parishioners, his cousin recalls him saying, “You have your family, and I have my family.” Another such moment comes with the confession of a middle-aged Guatemalan man who was a teenaged catechist the night gunmen came to the rectory looking for Fr. Stan. To this day, he admits, he feels like Judas Iscariot for leading the assassins to their sleeping victim.
Catholic writer María Ruiz Scaperlanda is an enthusiastic voice for Blessed Stanley Rother—one you can hear in the documentary American Martyr, which features her prominently.
Copyright © 2000– Steven D. Greydanus. All rights reserved.