Arkansas church named for martyred Oklahoma priest

DECATUR, Ark. – A small Arkansas church has been named in honor of a martyred priest from Oklahoma.

The Oklahoman reported the Catholic church in Decatur has been dedicated as a mission and named the Blessed Stanley Rother Catholic Church. The Most Rev. Anthony Taylor, bishop of the Diocese of Little Rock, says the church is the first in the world named for Rother.

Immigrants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico are members of the parish in the town about 165 miles northwest of Little Rock.

The Sept. 24 dedication was a day after Rother was beatified during a ceremony in Oklahoma City, moving him a step closer to sainthood.

Rother was a native of Okarche in central Oklahoma, serving as a missionary in Guatemala when he was killed in 1981.