A Mayan Witness to Blessed Stanley Rother

(UPDATE: As we approach and hopefully surpass our original goal, please know that additional donations make Juan Ajtzip's witness to Blessed Stanley Rother even more accessible in Guatemala.)

Father Stanley Rother, a missionary priest from Oklahoma, has been declared a martyr for the faith (December 2016) and was beatified by Pope Francis (September 2017). He served and lived with the Tz’utujil Maya people of Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, from 1968 until his assassination on July 28, 1981. Guided by his deep sense of pastoral vocation, Rother defended the dignity of the Tz'utujil after centuries of racism and repression, and he inspired Mayan community leaders to launch their own social initiatives.

We are working to fill in an important part of the picture of Blessed Stanley’s life through a memoir by someone who worked closely with the martyr. Others have written books about Rother, but none with a Mayan voice. Juan Ajtzip, a Tz’utujil community leader and close coworker with Father Stanley, offers that voice.

This book is not simply a hagiography but instead aims to motivate both local Mayas and others beyond Guatemala to carry Rother’s legacy forward. Cardinal Alvaro Ramazzini, Bishop of the Diocese of Huehuetenango, Guatemala writes a forward to the book.

Publication of the book by F&G Editores in Guatemala is now scheduled for early 2025. (We are also in conversation with a North American publisher concerning an English translation.) Our challenge is to ensure that the book is accessible in the Mayan community itself, where a $10 book can be a luxury. Your contributions will help subsidize publication and thus lower the price locally.

For more information, visit https://mayanwitness.org/