Factchecker’s Corner: Visiting the Blessed Stanley Rother Pilgrimage Center museum

In the world of factchecking, you can verify a lot through books, the internet, and field recordings. On occasion though, there is no substitute for seeing the subject of a story with your own eyes. When the thing being reported on is local and accessible, it can be a huge time saver to just go there and see what the story gets right.

Factchecking “Blessed Is He” by Brooke Adcox—our July/August feature on Blessed Stanley Rother, the first Oklahoman to be officially recognized as a martyr within the Catholic church— was a thrill. Though I was not personally raised Catholic, my father’s side of the family is. My uncle is a priest, and I have attended many a Mass myself. And by every source I could find, Blessed Rother seemed like a genuine and humble humanitarian who cared deeply about people: the exact sort of person, in my opinion, whose life deserves special recognition. I decided to visit the Pilgrimage Center museum at the new Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine in south Oklahoma City not just because it is mentioned in “Blessed Is He” but also because there was no more convenient way to synthesize the church’s official account of Blessed Rother’s life than a visit to a museum in his honor.

Visiting the Pilgrimage Center is free; they just ask that you sign in at the front desk with your name, where you’re from, and a prayer request. A few steps away is the entrance to the museum portion of the center, which is divided into four distinct parts. The first area guests see when entering is dedicated to Blessed Rother’s early life in Okarche and his time in seminary. The second and most extensive is all about his work in Guatemala, where he served at a mission church in the city of Santiago Atitlán for many years. The last two areas are dedicated to the violent Guatemalan Civil War—which eventually caused Blessed Rother’s death—and finally, the priest’s path to beatification.

The experience immerses you in Blessed Rother’s story in a way that goes deeper than words can. In the seminary section, visitors can hear the solemn Latin chants of priests. In the Guatemalan area, you hear the lively guitar strings of traditional music to that area. Being near so many of his belongings—like personal rosaries, stoles, and humble wooden footwear—makes Blessed Rother feel real and close, like he might walk around the corner at any moment. I also appreciated how every bit of text in the museum comes with both an English and a Spanish translation, driving home the fact that this is a space of international significance.

A visit to the pilgrimage center and a short hike to the top of the shrine’s recreation of Mexico’s Tepeyac Hill is recommended for anyone even slightly interested in Blessed Rother’s story or Catholic history and culture. It’s designed in a way that allows visitors to take in as much or as little of the written information as they like—all come away feeling closer to Blessed Rother. The pilgrimage center is open daily, 9 am to 4:30 pm, and includes a gift shop. The shrine campus is located at 700 Southeast 89th Street in Oklahoma City.