Msgr Moroney's Blog: Blessed Stanley Rother, priest and martyr

17 September 2017

Blessed Stanley Rother, priest and martyr

Next Saturday, September 23rd, Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, will celebrate the Beatification of the first martyr born in the United States of America: the Servant of God Father Stanley Rother. Father Rother was a priest of Oklahoma City who was martyred for the faith in Guatamala in 1981. Here’s a moving documentary on his life and heroic death.

Monsignor James P. Moroney, a priest of the Diocese of Worcester for forty four years, is Pastor of Saint Cecilia Parish in Leominster. He served for many years as Executive Director of the USCCB Secretariat for Divine Worship in Washington D.C., as Rector of Saint John's Seminary in Boston, and as Pastor of Mary Queen of the Rosary Parish in Spencer and as Rector of Saint Paul's Cathedral in Worcester. Pope Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict both appointed him as a Consultor to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in Rome and as Executive Director of the Vox Clara Committee. He is author of THE MASS EXPLAINED (Catholic Book Publishing) which is being published in its third edition this Spring.