Author Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda joins The Catholic Morning Show to discuss American Martyr: The Stanley Rother Story, the new documentary in theaters August 25 and 26 in which she appears as a featured voice. Scaperlanda, who wrote the definitive Rother biography The Shepherd Who Didn't Run, traces the Oklahoma farm boy's path to the Guatemalan mission field and his 1981 martyrdom, the first American-born priest so recognized by the Catholic Church. The conversation explores his radio ministry, his fluency in the Mayan language Tz'utujil, and why his witness still resonates for Catholic broadcasters today.
Bo Bonner talks with author Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda about Blessed Stanley Rother ahead of the new documentary American Martyr: The Stanley Rother Story, narrated by Martin Sheen and releasing in theaters August 25 and 26, 2026. Scaperlanda, whose biography The Shepherd Who Didn't Run helped bring Rother's story to national attention after his 2017 beatification, reflects on being part of the film and appearing in the drone footage of the crowd at the 2023 dedication of the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine in Oklahoma City. The two discuss Rother's path from a seminarian who once failed Latin to a fluent speaker of Tz'utujil, the unwritten Mayan language he helped translate the New Testament into, and his radio ministry through the station he built, the Voice of Atitlán, which trained catechists to reach remote mountain villages before his 1981 murder in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala.
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