Religion and Faith Oklahoma

The Rev. Stanley Rother canonization efforts continuing

Life | Updated: Fri, Apr 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

Efforts to attain sainthood for a martyred Oklahoma priest are progressing at the Vatican, Oklahoma City's Roman Catholic archbishop said after a recent trip to Rome. The Most Rev. Paul S. Coakley, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, said he learned during his recent trip to Rome that the canonization process for the late Stanley Rother have moved to another level. Rother, 46, was killed July 28, 1981, by unknown assailants in Guatemala. An Okarche native, he was serving as pastor of the Santiago Atitlan parish in Guatemala at the time of his death. The Oklahoma City Archdiocese, under the leadership of then-Archbishop Eusebius Beltran, began formal canonization proceedings on Rother's behalf in 2007. The archdiocese's canonization efforts included the formation of a tribunal that conducted an investigation into Rother's life, gathering documents about the priest, from his birth to his death, including all of his writings and all of the material written about him.