“American Martyr, The Stanley Rother Story” is most powerful not because of the vivid details of his martyrdom, but because of why he chose to return to Guatemala where he was on a death list.
The documentary — hitting theatres for a limited run Aug. 25-26 in English and Aug. 27 in Spanish — is narrated by actor Martin Sheen. Interviews with relatives, church officials and Father Rother’s friends; testimonials from his parishioners; grainy film clips; an array of photographs; and a compelling narrative introduce the young boy who grew up on a farm in Okarche, Okla.
It shows his early life with his parents, brother and sister. It paints a picture of a tough life that shaped him into a solid man who could build, farm and fix anything with the foundation of his family’s faith including nightly rosaries.
On a night in September 1953, both Stanley and his sister, Betty Mae, announced to their family that they were both entering the religious life. She entered the Adorers of the Blood of Christ and Stanley began seminary in San Antonio, Texas. He struggled with academic life, and six years later was sent home, unable to learn Latin. His local bishop helped him find another seminary and Stanley went to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md.
Four years later, his family, community and peers gathered at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Oklahoma City for his priesthood ordination May 25, 1963.
Nearly 2,000 miles away, there had been a presence of Catholic priests from Oklahoma in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, for several years. The documentary details the mission’s need for “a priest with a heart for the people and callouses on his hands.” Father Rother was sent.
He didn’t speak Spanish or the predominant language of the indigenous Mayans, Tzʼutujil, but he learned it by visiting the homes of his parishioners and eventually taking classes in Antigua.
He was sent to the poorest area of the country, where more than half of the children died before they were 6 years old. There was a serious lack of health care, education and means for people to support themselves.
Father Rother put his talents to work. He bought land, brought tractors and modern seeds, and started farm co-ops to teach the locals to farm and thus feed the people. They had been subsisting on mainly corn and beans.
He established a school and a hospital. He trained people in the community to be catechists and sent them out to teach the faith. Realizing they could not read Scripture in their language, he helped translate the Bible into Tz’utujil.
He helped start a radio station that ran catechetics and news. Its reach spread and that worried the Guatemalan government as the political climate was changing. Factions — military, paramilitary, leftist guerrilla movements — started forming. Death squads went out, people were disappeared, others were kidnapped and tortured. People were put on watch lists or death lists.
Interviews throughout the film detail the changes as the government labeled the indigenous communities as the enemy. Priests were kidnapped and killed; catechists were tortured and their bodies left at the side of the road.
Some sought refuge in the parish complex and slept in the church. Armed occupiers set up camp nearby and the people and the priests were under surveillance and constant intimidation.
Both Father Rother and his associate pastor, a Mayan man, were put on a death list. So, they left for Oklahoma City. His three months back home with his family were his “Garden of Gethsemane,” said Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda, postulator for his canonization cause, interviewed for the documentary. But Father Rother felt he had abandoned his people.
His cousin explained that Father Rother told him that he needed to return to his “family,” in Guatemala. He said, “I promised them I would be there for Holy Week.” He went back to Guatemala in April 1981 in time for Palm Sunday.
Three months later, July 28, three armed, masked men found him in the rectory and shot him in the head twice.
His heart remains in Guatemala where it is venerated, and his body was returned to Oklahoma City, where it rests in the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine in Oklahoma City, opened in 2023.
The movie is not ultimately about how Rother died; it’s about why he chose to go back knowing he might die. It’s a solid history lesson on Guatemala but better for getting to know the first U.S.-born priest recognized as a martyr. Once a miracle is attributed to his intercession, he would be canonized.
