Fr. John Peter will carry Rother’s example home to India

After the Lord’s ascension, the apostles traveled to the ends of the known world, spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ. Tradition holds that Thomas traveled the furthest, introducing the Gospel to the people in present day India. He later died in that faraway land, and a magnificent Basilica was built atop his tomb. He has been revered in India since.

A couple millennia after Saint Thomas shared the Gospel throughout that part of the world, his missionary zeal still resonates throughout the Church in India. 

For many years, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City has enjoyed a strong relationship with the Indian Diocese of Nellore. The Diocese of Nellore is blessed with both a missionary zeal and an abundance of priests, allowing vast dioceses like Oklahoma City to ask for support. At any given time, there are more than a dozen priests from Nellore serving here in central and western Oklahoma. 

In 2012, one such priest, Father John Peter Swaminathan, came to serve the faithful of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. More than 12 years later, after serving in five different parishes, his time in Oklahoma is coming to an end.

His bishop is calling him home to India. 

Father John Peter will be missed. And there are things he will miss as well.

“The people,” he said. “The people here have enlarged my vision, they have enlarged my meaning of life.” 

Father John Peter had served in the United States previously, spending three years in Pennsylvania from 1999 to 2002, serving at a massive parish and school near Scranton. He said he loved his time in America, but upon his return to India, he settled back into the life he knew at home. He has family and friends in India. Never again, he thought, would he be sent back to this side of the world. 

Ten years later, his bishop asked him to come to the U.S. once again – to Oklahoma. He was happy in India, yet felt that God must be calling him back to America. In the missionary spirit of Saint Thomas, he once again left the life he knew and his beloved family. 

“I didn’t research anything about Oklahoma,” he said, chuckling. “I thought it would be similar to Pennsylvania. It didn’t take long to see that I was wrong.” 

He spent the first six months serving at Saint Benedict Catholic Church in Shawnee, then a year and a half at Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church in Edmond. He speaks fondly of both parishes, but spoke most of his next assignment.

When Father John Peter arrived in Oklahoma in 2012, he had never heard of Blessed Stanley Rother. Of course, in 2012, Rother was not yet Blessed, and his shrine in south Oklahoma City was not yet built.

In 2014, Father John Peter was made pastor of Rother’s home parish, Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Okarche, and it did not take long for him to become familiar with Rother’s story.

Father John Peter visited Rother’s homestead, met Rother’s brother and sister, and he read “The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run.” Before long, Father John Peter was serving on the Archdiocesan Commission for the Beatification of Stanley Rother. He was still in Okarche when Rother was beatified in 2017. 

“I’ll always be grateful how everything unfolded during my time in Okarche,” he shared. “Here I was, a missionary priest from India, participating in all these celebrations of the amazing life of the missionary priest, Blessed Stanley Rother.” 

After the beatification, Father John Peter ordered a wooden statue of Blessed Stanley Rother from Italy. He placed the statue inside Holy Trinity, where it remains to this day. He would often sit at the feet of the statue, asking for the intercession of Blessed Stanley Rother. 

“Like you, I came from my country to another,” he would pray. “Here I am. Pray for me.” 

Since 2020, Father John Peter has been at Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church in Purcell. Arriving at a new parish in the midst of COVID was not easy. 

“The Church was empty,” he shared. “And there were building projects that were long overdue.” 

It took a lot of work to get things right, to get people coming back to Church. 

“Even though it was painful at times, I’m happy that I undertook the projects, and the people are happy, and there is momentum there to come back to the Church. I am grateful that God used me in Purcell.” 

Father John Peter was ordained to the priesthood in 1993. He has spent nearly half of his priesthood in the United States. He does not know what the long-term future holds, if he will be asked some day to return to the United States. But for now, he knows he is returning to India to serve as the principal at a Catholic school in Nellore. While in Oklahoma, three of the parishes he served had Catholic schools. 

“I cherish my memories with the Catholic schools in Oklahoma, witnessing how they can impact the lives of children,” he said. "I've learned a lot from working in these schools, and now I can take those lessons back to India.”

And he’ll return with much more, including a lasting connection to Blessed Stanley Rother.

“It is amazing how a small town in Oklahoma can produce a saint, a model and an example, for the whole world; a faithful priest who was willing to lay down his life,” Father John Peter said.

“I marvel at his sacrifice and his courage to die for his faith. His story opened my eyes to better appreciate my own priesthood.” 

Christopher Aderhold is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic.

Photo: (Above) Fr. John Peter Swaminathan at Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church in Purcell. Photo provided.
Fr. John Peter Swaminathan at a Mass commemorating the death of Fr. Stanley Rother on July 29, 2017, at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Okarche. Photo Archdiocese of Oklahoma City Archives.