Photo by Sebastian Herrmann on Unsplash
CV NEWS FEED // In a statement encouraging donations for an upcoming collection, the bishop of the Diocese of Reno, Nevada, this week shared that Blessed Stanley Rother’s heroic witness serving those in Guatemala deepened his own solidarity with Latin American Catholics.
Supporting a collection to be taken on the weekend of Jan. 25-26 is a way for Catholics in the United States to show solidarity with those in Latin America, following the example of Bl. Rother, Bishop Daniel H. Mueggenborg said in a Jan. 7 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) press release.
Bl. Rother, who grew up in Oklahoma, was ordained a priest in 1963 after completing seminary formation at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He received permission to serve in the Oklahoma mission diocese in Guatemala, where he ministered to the native tribe of the Tz’utujil, according to the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.
Having grown up on a farm, he was well-equipped to work alongside those in his mission diocese on their farmlands, where there was immense poverty. He administered sacraments there and provided much spiritual support, until those fighting in a civil war put his name on a death list. Fr. Rother returned to Oklahoma for safety, but he went back to Guatemala shortly after out of love for his diocese. He was martyred on July 28, 1981. His cause for canonization opened in 2007.
“Blessed Stanley Rother ministered in Guatemala, even in the face of great danger because God had called him to love and care for Latin Americans in need,” Bishop Mueggenborg said. “Fr. Rother’s ministry to the poor threatened the interests of powerful people and it ultimately led to his death, but his heroic witness helped to inspire my own priestly vocation and my sense of solidarity with Catholics in Latin America.”
The upcoming collection is a way the faithful can show solidarity as well, he said. “It may not cost us our lives, but a financial sacrifice, even a small one, will go towards impacting the lives of many.”
Bishop Mueggenborg is chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on National Collections. The annual Collection for the Church in Latin America began in 1965 and last year, it distributed $6.2 million toward ministries, disaster relief, and formation for clergy and religious, according to the release.
“With support from parishioners like you, the Collection for the Church in Latin America helps countless poor and marginalized people to experience God’s love and share it with their neighbors,” Bishop Mueggenborg said. “That is what Blessed Stanley Rother went to Latin America to do, and it is what Jesus calls all of us to do.”
More information about the USCCB Subcommittee on the Church in Latin America is available here.
