Search
-
February 15, 2024
Thousands of pilgrims, faithful visit in first year
Mark Ruffin spent months searching for the perfect property to build a large church in south Oklahoma City after Archbishop Coakley charged him with finding a spot to accommodate the rapidly growing Hispanic community in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.
Ruffin presented a few options, but no location seemed adequate.
Then, in September 2017, the Beatification of Blessed Stanley Rother was celebrated in downtown Oklahoma City with an unexpected 20,000 people showing up and thousands more outside and in local hotel lobbies watching on EWTN and local KWTV-Ch. 9. Until then, Blessed Stanley was a local hero. On that day, he literally and figuratively became a hero for the Church Universal as the first U.S.-born priest and the nation’s first recognized martyr to be beatified.
It became clear that the original planned site for Blessed Stanley’s entombment at The Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help wouldn’t be sufficient. The diocese needed a church that could properly and fully tell the story of Blessed Stanley while accommodating a large number of pilgrims and serving thousands of Catholic families.
Ruffin, Archbishop Coakley and chancery leaders shifted gears.
“Mark came to me enthusiastically and said he’d found the perfect property. He’d evaluated it and told me ‘If you don’t buy it, I will!’” Archbishop Coakley said.
“We knew this was the place. It was right where we needed it to be, near the highways and near the Hispanic centers of the population on the south side of the metro.”
So, with the former Brookside golf course at SE 89 and Interstate 35 now part of the archdiocese, Archbishop Coakley and a group of dedicated Catholic professionals and parish leaders began the process of planning and building a shrine.
The diocese launched its first-ever capital campaign with tremendous success, and Washington D.C.-based Franck & Lohsen Architects was hired to design the 38,000-square-foot church. Oklahoma City’s The Boldt Company led construction of the shrine church, museum and pilgrim center.
The nearly 60-acre shrine campus includes a Spanish Baroque style church, featuring stucco, arches, tile roofs and covered walkways resembling the character of the Guatemalan villages where Blessed Stanley served. The landscape was designed to accommodate gatherings, festival processions and contemplative gardens for private prayer.
On Feb. 17, 2023, Archbishop Coakley dedicated the shrine church – the largest Catholic church in Oklahoma. He was joined by members of the Rother family, Archbishop Emeritus Beltran, bishops, priests and deacons, and faithful from across the country, some of whom drove hours to be a part of the momentous occasion.
The shrine is the final resting place for Blessed Stanley Francis Rother, a priest from Okarche, who dedicated his priesthood to serving the poor and marginalized in Santiago Atitlan and Cerro de Oro in the Diocese of Sololá, Guatemala. He was murdered in his rectory in the early morning of July 28, 1981.
Blessed Stanley’s cousin, Father Don Wolf, serves as rector of the shrine and pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church at the shrine, along with Father Scott Boeckman, vice rector, Father Brannon Lepak, parochial vicar and Father Miguel E. Ayuso, parochial vicar. Miguel Mireles is the shrine’s executive director.
“Drawing from the example of Father Stan’s ministry, we not only have the opportunity to tell the story of his life through the shrine and pilgrim center, but we are able to make Christ visible to all who visit and to the thousands of Catholics at Mass each week at Sacred Heart parish at the shrine. Their joy fills the church with vibrant faith, and I am grateful and humbled to be a part of it,” Father Wolf said.
Since the dedication of the shrine one year ago, more than 120,000 pilgrims have visited the shrine pilgrim center, museum and church, Mireles said, with thousands more visiting the replica of Tepeyac Hill that towers over the northwest corner of the shrine campus. About 5,000 Catholics attend one of 11 Masses celebrated each week at Sacred Heart at the shrine and more than one million people have searched for the shrine on Google Maps.
The influx of visitors also bolstered the surrounding community and garnered the attention and support of Visit OKC and the South Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, which put the shrine church on the cover of its recent visitors’ guide.
“Visit Oklahoma City is excited to celebrate the anniversary of the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine in our community! It is a sacred site for both U.S. and international visitors, drawing attention from faith-based conventions and motorcoach tour groups to leisure visitors making a pilgrimage to the site. OKC's visitor economy is on the rise, and we expect interest in the shrine to grow as well,” said Zac Craig, president of Visit OKC.
Archbishop Coakley said during the second year of the shrine he hopes even more pilgrims from Oklahoma and beyond will visit the shrine to learn about the witness of Blessed Stanley and to be led to a deeper encounter with Jesus Christ.
Among those visitors will be friends of Mark Ruffin, who, unfortunately, was never able to visit the shrine. He died from COVID in February 2021.
During Archbishop Coakley’s homily at the dedication of the shrine, his voice strained with emotion when he mentioned Ruffin’s contribution.
“I felt his absence when we gathered to dedicate the shrine because he was such an integral part of the plan,” he said. “He was such a dedicated wise businessman and developer, and such a good husband, father and Catholic.
“He was our go-to guy. It would have been so wonderful for him to see the completed shrine project, but he probably had a better view than we did.”
Diane Clay is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic.
Photo: (Top) Very Rev. William Novak, V.G. led a short prayer service before Bl. Stanley Rother was placed inside the altar at the Bl. Stanley Rother Shrine Chapel on Feb. 13, 2023. Photo Avery Holt/Sooner Catholic.
Archbishop Coakley blessed the altar with sacred Chrism during the Dedication of a Church and an Altar on Feb. 17, 2023, at the Bl. Stanley Rother Shrine. Photo Chris Porter/Sooner Catholic.
Mark Ruffin
