Story of slain, beatified priest is told in book and puppet format

Dressed in a white robe and his colorful Guatemalan stole, Blessed Stanley Rother spoke to a group of metro area children.

"Boys and girls, when you're afraid, don't let fear overcome you. Sing songs, pray to God and stand up for what is right," he said.

Though the Catholic priest died in 1981, his remarkable story is being brought to life through the music and dramatization of a puppet show and the children's book that inspired it.

This is how Susan Rother Bond and her husband James are sharing the late priest's message of love and faith with a new generation.

Rother, an Okarche native, was a priest with the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City when he was killed by unknown assailants while serving a parish in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. He was proclaimed a martyr by Pope Francis in 2016 and he was beatified — the final step before sainthood — in an inspirational ceremony in 2017 in Oklahoma City.

"He was an ordinary man that we can all relate to," she said.

""My goal has always been to engage children in their faith. The puppet show is just another way to share his story."

She said her father, Norbert Rother, was Stanley Rother's first cousin and grew up close and working alongside each other on their family farms in Okarche.

Her parents were the same age as the young Stan and they attended school with him at Holy Trinity Catholic School. She grew up listening to stories about her famous cousin from older family members and lots of other relatives — she has 45 first cousins.

Susan, a pharmacist, learned that her cousin was an ordinary man who felt called to the priesthood.

He had trouble learning Latin and was sent away from one seminary but he persevered in his studies and eventually mastered the language and was ordained a priest. She also found out that he served in Guatemala during a bloody civil war and refused to leave his parishioners at a time when people were being kidnapped, tortured and murdered.

In the months before his death, the priest returned to his native Oklahoma but courageously decided to go back to his Guatemalan parish even though he knew his name had been placed on a "death list."


Susan knew she wanted to tell Stanley Rother's story in a children's book to convey the powerful life lessons found in his journey from Oklahoma farm boy to the Catholic priesthood to beloved priest and martyr for the faith.

As the mother of five and the wife of a surgeon who liked to sing and perform in skits and plays, she said she was familiar with the idea of using creativity to share stories of faith with youths.

She tried to complete her book "Blessed Stanley Rother: An Extraordinary Ordinary Life" before the late priest's beautification in 2017 but wasn't able to finish it until after the event.

"I wanted Oklahoma children to realize the significance of this historical event surrounding a person from their home state," she said.

The book, including Susan's illustrations, was published in 2018 and became such a hit that a second printing is planned soon because the book is almost sold out. Susan said she has shopped books to almost every state in the country and to people of many different Christian denominations, not just Catholics.

James Bond said he encouraged his wife to sing a song based on her book when she began reading the story to children in community. The couple began brainstorming about using music during her story sessions and they eventually decided to do a puppet show.

The couple borrowed two puppets from James' family ministry and created two characters that they could use to tell Rother's story as Susan read from her book. One of the puppets, Nicholas, portrays one of Rother's real-life parishioners whom the priest befriended and aided while serving in Guatemala. The other puppet portrays Rother.

"My husband wrote a jingle and is a natural performer, so he was a good sport to try it out and it just organically evolved from there," Susan said.

During a recent storytelling session at the Gospel of Life Dwelling in Moore, a ministry and home for older adults, James brought the puppets to life with songs he created for each character and an engaging and often humorous question-and-answer session between the characters and his wife.

"Oh Miss Sue, he was a righteous dude," Nicholas the puppet says of Rother.

The priest's puppet character tells the crowd how he liked to play baseball and eat fried chicken growing up in Okarche. The puppet drew laughter from the children when telling about playing a prank on his older sister Marita.

He also talks about being sad when he was told that he needed to leave seminary after he had trouble learning Latin. Alluding to the months before his death, the puppet says he knew there were bad men who wanted to hurt him but he prayed and talked to God about it.

The Bonds said they initially put the puppet show on at a vacation Bible school. The couple, who attend St. Mark's Catholic Church in Norman, then took the show on the road to All Saints' Catholic School in Norman and they said the students seemed to enjoy it.

"Kids are entranced by puppets and will listen to them with more attention than if an adult talks to them," Susan said.

The puppet show was featured at the November 2019 groundbreaking ceremony and celebration for the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine in south Oklahoma City. Moving forward, the couple is scheduling storytelling and book-signing sessions with schools and other groups.

Susan said the Spanish translation of the book was recently released and it is popular with parishes and schools heavily populated by Hispanics.

In the summer, the Bonds and their children plan to visit Guatemala and they will take books to give to youngsters there. They also hope to send copies of the book to children in Mexico and Peru. Susan said profits from the book are donated back to the causes and charities related to Rother.

She said she is proud to give back to her family and her faith by sharing Rother's story.

"With every book signing, I meet people that inspire me with their stories of Blessed Stanley and I have rekindled relationships with extended family that I have not experienced since I was a child," she said.

"It's also very rewarding to see kids connect with Blessed Stanley's story. We are all called to be saints. Blessed Stanley Rother's example gives us an ordinary hero with traits that we can emulate in our own lives with an extraordinary faith, compassion, love for our neighbor and bravery to do the right thing."

Her husband shared similar sentiments.

"Father Stanley grew up in Oklahoma, had humble beginnings, nothing was given to him. He had adversities but he stood up for what he believed in," James said.

"We can all do that. He's a hero we can all live up to."

To learn more

For more information about Susan Rother Bond's children's book, go to the "Blessed Stanley Rother: An Extraordinary Ordinary Life" page on Facebook.

https://oklahoman.com/article/5652167/creative-message-story-of-slain-beatified-priest-is-told-in-book-and-puppet-format