Movie Magic (Miracles) | July 12, 2026

Canonization can sound mysterious, but the heart of it is simple: the Church recognizes what God has already done in a life of real, visible holiness. In this episode, I talk about Blessed Stanley Rother and why the work at the Shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother in Oklahoma City is not about hype or “winning” a popularity contest, but about helping people encounter a priest and martyr whose bravery, pastoral care, and fidelity still challenge our own discipleship.

From there, I explore what it takes to make Blessed Stanley’s story accessible to more people, especially those who have never heard of Oklahoma’s Catholic history or the Church’s experience in Guatemala. A new documentary debuting in August and a feature film in development for 2027 offer fresh ways to bring a complicated, high-stakes story to theaters, streaming, and audiences across the country.

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Father Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

Transcript

Leadership Changes And Shrine Role

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This is living Catholic with Father Dumble.

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Welcome, Oklahoma, to Living Catholic. I'm Monsignor Don Wolfe, rector of the Shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother. This last weekend, Father Joe Irwin took over as pastor of Sacred Heart Parish. He and his associates, Father Jose Avigna and Sarat Malavarapu, will serve the people of the parish of Sacred Heart directly. Now, Father Irwin is coming from St. Joseph's Parish in Norman. He has 20 years of experience and he is noted for his pastoral zeal and careful concern. I have no doubt that his time at Sacred Heart will be a great gain for everyone. I've been assigned by the Archbishop to maintain my post as rector of the Blessed Stanley Ruther Shrine. It's my special concern to promote the cause of the canonization of Blessed Stanley. So to this end, my primary concern will be to speak and write and advocate for the ongoing recognition of Blessed Stanley's example of holiness and saintly service to the will of God and to the entire Church. In the Archbishop's Message to Me, I'm to do my best to bring the recognition of Blessed Stanley's holiness to as many people and situations as I can. After all, our concern is to make clear that Stan's example of service and sacrifice is for everyone.

What Canonization Really Means

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Canonization is not a mystical spell cast by someone in the church transforming the life of a saint. Instead, it's the recognition of what has already taken place. By knowing and recognizing the truth of what Blessed Stanley's life contained in his actions and his witness, his name is added to the canon, the list of those who are outstanding in holiness and who embody the truth of Jesus' life in ministry. This is now my work to make his witness more well known. Of course, Sacred Heart Parish at the shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother is still the official designation of our reality at Sacred Heart and at the shrine. These two entities are intertwined, just as they should be. Sacred Heart worships at the shrine. The shrine receives and benefits from the service of the people of Sacred Heart, and fleshes out its own witness of Blessed Stanley's virtue by way of these. And because of this linkage one with the other, I will also be present to the people of Sacred Heart and to Father Irwin's pastoral team to help out whenever I can. The priests of Sacred Heart will also be present to help serve the needs of the shrine. This is a somewhat new arrangement, but only somewhat. Sacred Heart Parish and the Shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother are linked in their willingness to bring the message of Christ to the largest number of people, especially those who pass through the doors of the shrine at whatever time and in whatever circumstances. It's the primary concern for all of us at the shrine and in the parish to support one another and to bring the message of God's love and blessing as instantiated in the witness of Blessed Stanley in as comprehensive and a complete way as possible. I do have to admit, it's a thorough challenge. There's no straight line between our striving and our accomplishment of the recognition of Blessed Stanley's holiness. Certainly many people continue to be unaware of his story and the impact that he's made here in Oklahoma and in Guatemala. For most people in the country, Guatemala and its history might as well have been on the other side of the moon, and the peculiar history and vitality of the church in Oklahoma are equally unknown. Helping them to find some access to this history is part of helping to make sure Stanley's story is heard and understood. It's not a popularity contest, as if the office of saints at the Vatican was measuring what a recent poll had found concerning famous holiness. At the same time, one of the marks of a saint is the response on the part of the people to the holiness that he embodies. From the beginning of the church, there have been those whose lives and ministry have moved the faithful as examples of true fidelity to Christ. The more we're moved, the more overwhelmingly clear it becomes that this example of Christian living is a true marker of the presence of Christ in the world. And it is especially the case that we add the name of the one to be noted as a true follower of Christ if that example animates and inspires the generations that come after him. It is my work to help us all understand and to connect with Blessed Stanley's life to our generation and to the ones that come after us.

New Films To Share His Witness

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To this end, there is a new documentary being prepared to be debuted in August. It's an expansion of the short film, An Ordinary Martyr, that was prepared for the beatification in 2017. The same company is at work making this 20-minute video into a major documentary work to be shown around the country in theaters. Such films have demonstrated their efficacy in bringing many topics to the forefront over the last generation. Plus, as we all know, having such a work available for streaming and all the other venues of access in our day make it possible to communicate even complicated and intricate subjects, like Father Rother's story, to a very much wider audience. This will help to spread Stan's story as well as to promote a deeper response among the people in the United States. I also hope it will be translated into Spanish as to become a resource in Guatemala as well. Making Stan's example available to everyone is our number one goal. I'm certain that the more anyone encounters his example of bravery and conviction in the face of the murderous circumstances of the time, the more they will be moved. All I have to do is to make sure the story is told and well. In addition, there is a full-length feature movie being made about the last year of Father Rother's life. It's in preparation now for a planned release in 2027. EWTN is involved in its production and distribution. It'll become part of what the network will make available in its mission to spread the gospel. I went to Guatemala last spring for a few days in order to be present for some of the filming. It was a fascinating experience to stand behind the cameras and observe the kind of work necessary to make the magic of movies happen. What I saw impressed me, although I have to admit I know nothing about the process, so I have no basis for judgment one way or the other. Plus, I know there is a huge canyon between good intentions, quality acting, skillful editing, insightful storytelling, a thorough script, solid technical contributions, all of that put together, and a good movie. So we'll all have to wait and see what it'll amount to. But it is good news that movie makers are taking the challenge of telling Stan's story seriously enough to invest their time and talent. I pray that it will be a success. After all, if it turns out not to be a story well told, it'll put off any additional effort to make it happen on the big screen, and that would be a gigantic disappointment. What's not a disappointment is the commitment of the producer-writer to make this story come alive. I visited with him during my time in Guatemala and I was impressed with the depth of his knowledge of Stan's stories and his desire to make sure that this story is told well. Even some of the tiniest details were at his fingertips as he discussed what had happened with Stan and at the Oklahoma mission in the hard days of 1981 when Stan was martyred. They will play a major part in making my efforts fruitful as well. It's good to be part of an effort that has so many different people with so many different projects pulling in the same direction. In the end, of course, we're left only to be pulling in the same direction. What do we what we do what we can do in whatever venue we have, and all the rest is left to the inspiration of the Spirit and the work of providence in the world. We're not commanded to do the impossible, only to do the next thing available to us as we commit ourselves to listening to and then serving the will of God in the world. It is God who provides the increase according to the divine presence among us.

The Stick Shift Problem On Set

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Oh, by the way, I'll have no presence in the feature film. People ask me that all the time, presumably because I was present during some of the filming. I assure them I am no actor, nor do I pretend to be, and no one there wanted me in the movie. And I have no notion of being in the film when I travel down to the filming on site there in Santiago Atitlan. The production team invited me down, and I responded to their invitation, to be the chaplain there for a few days. Partly they joke with me about being in the movie, and partly the people I know are excited to imagine that someone they know might be in the film. But that's not me. Although I did have a moment in which there was a conundrum concerning one of the shots they were filming. In it, Father Rother was to drive up in his pickup, get out, and talk to someone on the side of the road, and then get back into his pickup and drive away. Now, it's a tiny little scene. It had taken up no more than a few seconds in the movie, and there's no more to it than that brief description. But the problem was that the actor playing Stan didn't know how to drive a standard shift transmission. It wouldn't do to have Father Stan, the farm boy from O'Carchie, the experienced and wisened missionary, get into his vehicle and not be able to engage the clutch. So the production team turned to one of the consultants who was helping arrange the logistics from from uh from the back, he also looked like the main actor. Alas, he couldn't drive a stick shift either. I thought to myself, at the moment, I learned to drive a stranded transmission when I was about nine years old. I might end up in this movie. Alas, I don't look like a 45-year-old missionary, no matter how magical the movies can make me, and they never asked. I didn't end up on the other side of the camera. I can see it now, advising my friends and family that I'm in a feature film for three seconds, and my starring role is that I drive away for one second into the sunset. But you know, there are no small roles, just small actors. I do look forward to what my new role will bring.

Canonization Timeline And A New Pope

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Canonization is typically a long process. None of us can predetermine how long it will take or what challenges it might face. I think that we do have an advocate in our new Pope, who was himself an American missionary to a Latin American country, had to face the challenges of insurgency and the government's harsh response. In his case, it was Peru and it was the Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path Gorillas, but many of the challenges and the dangers were the same as in Guatemala. Stan's life in martyrdom are facts that Pope Leo can relate to directly. At the same time, it might take another hundred years for the recognition of Stan's martyrdom to ascend to the awareness of the whole church. We in Oklahoma are not in charge of these things. We can only tell our story and continue to be faithful to what this story contains. As we do that, I'm confident that God will bless us with all prospering. My work is to be faithful to what's to what the Archbishop has given me to do. I prepare the ground, another sows, and another reaps. The harvest is the Lord's.

A Daydream Of Visiting 1970

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Now, as we enter into the heart of summer, I find myself also a bit preoccupied by a recurring thought. Maybe it's simply my response to the challenges I now face, a way to deflect from some of the work involved in this transition, but I've had this fictional longing about being able to go back in time, to be at a clergy meeting in Oklahoma in, oh, say, 1970. I'd be able to give a talk to the assembled priests concerning what the world and the church would be like fifty years hence. It's whimsy, of course, which means I get to make it up as I want, but I'd be able to shock the hearers about their presumptions and their notions of life of the church, as well as their ideas about the politics of the moments. It'd be fun, at least it is in my private moments when it plays out in my head. I think I'd start by letting them know that in our day, today, you can go to a racetrack, spend some time in a casino, pick up a bottle of wine at 7 Eleven, live with a dispensary a block away from your rectory, visit a brewery downtown, or go for some wine tasting in Lincoln County, and all of them as options for how to fill your day. That description itself would be enough to let them know that history does not proceed in measured steps and inevitable directions. It's filled with the unexpected, the unexplored, and the unimagined. I could also tantalize them with the notion that you can hold in your hand a device that gives you access to every movie ever made, every book ever printed, every document ever written, and every contract ever signed. I might let them know that little things that we don't pay attention to here in 2026, which are still to be invented in 1970, like catalytic converters and electronic ignition and Wi-Fi communication, have all gone a long way to solving the problems of smog and air pollution and the awfulness of the drek produced by the TV networks. So much so we hardly think of these things as challenges anymore. And those would just be the appetizers for the crowd. The big banquet would follow. Many of the old problems would be the same, disappointingly so, of course. Airports that looked like bus stations, neighborhoods that looked like parking lots with houses on them, the hollowing out of dying rural communities and the instability of our families, those disappointments would lead the way. They too would be but morsels with the bulk to follow. But it'd be fun to tweak their noses at what had happened far beyond the imagination or their kin. But of course, we would turn to the church things immediately. In 1970 there were a bundle of anxious of anxious questions to settle, both on the international scene as well as here locally. I'd know a lot of the guys who were asking the questions there in 1970 and critiquing my answers. They'd be the younger versions of the priest I came to know when I was first ordained. So I'd know where their anxieties would lie. Coming from the future, my facts and figures would be incontestable, of course, except for the fact that they'd have to believe me, which wouldn't be that easy. There's nothing like being convinced you're on the right side of history, no matter what history actually produces. And many of them were convinced of just that, that they were on the right side of history. There'd be those who ask first about Catholic schools and their survival. They'd be somewhat surprised at which schools would be closed, although most of the ones too close had already shuttered their doors by then in 1970, and they ask about the future of the parishes and where their real vitality was coming from. They'd be surprised by the answer, especially considering the wide variety of ethnic communities that make up our congregations today. More than anything, there'd be wide scale shock at the support that our schools now receive from the state. But that would have shocked us all even ten years ago. More than anything, of course, they'd want to know about Humane Vite and its fallout in the American Church. That America stopped having babies, that children don't play in neighborhoods, that there are no such thing as pick-up baseball games anymore anywhere would leave them uncomprehending, as with the general loss of credibility by the bishops concerning moral issues in the imagination of most Catholics. Or in the shorthand of the moment, everyone on all sides of that issue, everyone was partly right and partly wrong when each of them laid out his position. It would seem the direst predictions did come true, and a good many of the rosy scenarios did not. That would surprise most of them. I'd hoped they'd ask about the Cold War in its disposition in the order of things. It'd be exciting to describe how it ended with the only Slavic Pope ever to sit in the chair of St. Peter, helping to lead the way to a political solution. That the iron curtain came down without a shot being fired would flabbergast everyone. We did achieve peace through strength, and we were able to progress in our communication and understanding with more openness and communication. Not everyone was right and not everyone was wrong, but it'd be safe to say everyone was surprised. Eventually we'd get to the pressing problems of the moment when it came to population, resources, and the goods of the earth, the questions central to the life and function of any society. As pastors, they'd want to know where we had gone as we were facing the tough questions of the day, especially as we were tipping into a record population of four billion people on the planet by then in 1970.

The Population Bomb Revisited

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This would likely be prompted by the assurances raised in a book that was becoming more and more notable at that time. The book was The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich. It was raising the awareness and the ire of almost everyone. He had spelled out some drastic consequences for the future. The guys at the meeting would want to know what we were doing about them. Anyone who had an inquiring mind would want to know how things had turned out. In this work, Professor Ehrlich described, this was in 1968, what was going on in the world at the time. He sat down and wrote a book narrating a series of awful things that would be happening in the course of events. He had already crossed the finish line and conclusion. He wasn't presenting a picture of what might happen. He assured us it was already happening. And his descriptions were startling. More than startling, they were ghastly. He noted the inevitability of future starvation, especially in India and China. Other places in the world would face difficulties as well, including in Africa and the Middle East. The future was grim, and the numbers pointed to big troubles up ahead. The real problem was the population explosion. There were just too many people in just about every place. Those too many people were making the world worse in every way. The only thing that could be done, in his opinion, was for the leaders and their people all over the globe to buckle down, make tough choices, get over their outdated moral squeamishness, and begin reducing the number of people on the planet. If this didn't happen, everything was not only going to be bad, what was already inevitable would be followed by what was going to be even worse. There were too many people on too small a planet. The only solution was to have fewer people. I suppose we should also note that Dr. Ehrlich was 93 years old when he died this year. Curiously, he was not personally rushing to the solution that he proposed for everybody else on the planet. His solution for the problems of 1970 was that there be fewer people on the planet, and this would be good for everyone. And yet the solution for fewer people that he proposed didn't include him. His ideas were only a prescription for other people, which of course they always are. His descriptions were of a planet that had one half as many people on it as it does today. We've been able to make it these 60 years since his writing without any of these disasters overtaking us. The greatest problem in the third world is political instability caused by those who want to participate in the lifestyle of the first world, not by those who can't eke out a living. Famine is now caused by political instability and national incompetence, not by a lack of food or by bad harvests. The children of China face an obesity epidemic. India is gripped by a tech revolution that is by the consequences of prosperity, not the inevitability of poverty. The greatest protests in all the world today lately have been about using too much oil too often, not its scarcity. The professor was pressing. The problem was that he only predicted that people would get riled up. He didn't predict what would actually happen. It would be fascinating to describe this to my audience in 1970, not because of a claim about how foolish popular opinion can be, but because it's an example of how much we long to believe that we're on the edge of the world. That sounds odd, but it's true. The world is it's it's we long to know that the world is hovering on the brink. How else could it be that Professor Ehrlich was honored and remembered for his work and his book fifty years after his prediction turned out to be false in every way? We never grow tired of being scared and anxious. It would be a reminder that the longing for transcendence never dies away. Have we become more surfed as a society and our needs are taken care of so much we hardly need to leave our houses, we become more and more restless. Rather than luxuriating in our benefits and enjoying life more, we push against our yokes and demand change in everything. Hearing that the world will be ending unless we act plays up to our deepest desires to act and to do and to provide. We love to know that the future will be made by us. They also play into the deeper conviction that as we hover on despair and fear, that there might be a rescuer who will come and save us. It cannot be the case that we consume the dire warnings of the naysayers among us generation after generation, telling us the world we know will be crashing down and ending, ending our lives and our hopes in our futures, without us also being convinced that somehow, somewhere, there will be a Savior among us who will bring us the hope we need. It seems that we hunger for a promised land, even if we have to invent a desert to cross in order to reach it. What we hunger for is what is beyond us, and we long to encounter it. We want to know that the world is not enough and never will be. Our deepest longing is to find that we are truly provided for, not in the sum of our living here, nor in the accumulation of progress, but in the satisfaction of our souls. We long for a savior, even when we long given up being lost in sin or denied the gifts of heaven. Catastrophe has been captivating. It seems to move every gear in the machinery of our politics and our education, and all because we long to be saved, the hungers of the heart never go away.

Why We Crave Catastrophe

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As it turns out, my fantasy of returning to 1970 and the real life challenge of my new responsibilities have this in common. I get to speak to a deeper promise and a more grand vision of God who did not abandon his people or walk away from their needs. A God whom we can trust that will be faithful today because he has always been faithful in the past. It sounds like good work when you can get it. It sounds like the work that I've gotten. Back in just a moment. Our steady weight, the measures, early and late, as we take our stand? So that upon us the promise is thus, that our lives are not meaningless. We are headed toward, through sorrow and sword, without seemingless. A place where we belong, where we sing our hearts' songs as we arrive, praising, our lives overflowing, as we enter knowing, our hearths are warm, our flocks are grazing. As the day closes around us, and then Moses glows in his blessings, as God guides the years, we meet our fears, our fate now addressing. For now is the promised day, our paths now the way to God, God's great gift to us. As tomorrow dawns we know that as we go, we will have more and more than enough. That's the day.

Closing Charge And Where To Learn More

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We can cast back over our shoulders and look at the life of the faith of our parents and our grandparents and marvel at what they were able to do and how they were able to respond to the challenges of their day. And our invitation is to be faithful to the work of the Lord and to respond to the challenges and the invitations here and now in our day. As St. Paul says, now is the time, this is the day, this is here is the place. And as we continue to explore what it means to be living Catholic, that's the challenge that we face in order to be faithful, to begin to understand the currents and the work of the Spirit inside of all of the occasions and events that we face in our time. So I hope that in the weeks to come you can continue to join us as we continue to explore what it means to be living Catholic. I hope in the coming weeks that you're with us.

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Living Catholic is a production of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for Oklahoma Catholic Radio. To learn more, visit okcr.org.