Oklahoma City, Okla., Nov 6, 2019 / 13:55 pm
Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City broke ground Sunday on what will be the largest Catholic church in the state- the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine, meant to honor a late Oklahoma priest on the path to sainthood.
"What we are about to construct here we are building for the honor and glory of God whose goodness, whose holiness, whose faithfulness, whose mercy is shown through the life of Father Stanley Rother," Archbishop Coakley said during his Nov. 3 homily.
Rother was born in 1935 in Okarche, Oklahoma, about 40 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. He graduated from Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Maryland and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa in 1963.
Five years after his ordination, Fr. Rother accepted an invitation to join the mission team at Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, a poor rural community of mostly indigenous people.