‘He had to go back’
Retired OKC priest recalls friendship with Stanley Rother
Editor’s note: This story is part of “Road to Sainthood,” an ongoing series about the late Rev. Stanley Rother, the first U.S.-born male and U.S. priest named a martyr by the Roman Catholic Church. His beatification, at a ceremony planned for Sept. 23 in Oklahoma City, will place him one step closer to canonization.
Marvin Leven looked at his friend in stunned surprise.
“You must call the bishop,” he said, urging the other man out into the corridor of Assumption Seminary.
Leven, 92, a retired priest with the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, recalled the night that his fellow seminarian Stanley Rother had come to his room with shocking news: his grades weren’t good enough to stay in the San Antonio seminary.
Memories of that conversation are among three vivid recollections that recently surfaced as Leven prepares to attend Rother’s beatification ceremony.
That Rother made it through that rough patch at seminary to go on to be ordained into the Catholic priesthood is one of the remarkable aspects of his life, Leven said.
And he said the fact that he eventually became a beloved priest in Guatemala is testament to his humility and love for the Lord and
the Lord’s faithfulness.
He said he couldn’t have imagined that outcome on that eye-opening night at the seminary.
Leven said like Rother, he wasn’t very proficient at Latin, but unlike his friend, he had joined together with another seminarian to help each other. They traded notes and helped each other get through their classes.
Leven said Rother was “so quiet and unassuming” that they had no idea that he was struggling so badly. He said Rother was very good with any kind of handiwork that was needed at the seminary so he volunteered for that kind of work, but Latin wasn’t his strong suit.
“Here he was with a textbook that was written in Latin, and he couldn’t read it. All he could get was what he gleaned from the professor’s remarks,” Leven said.
The night that Rother told him that he’d been dismissed from seminary, Leven suggested he do something else: break the rules.
Leven said they weren’t supposed to talk to other seminarians after 8:30 p.m., and they weren’t supposed to make phone calls without permission from seminary leaders, but they had obviously broken the silence rule (called Summum Silentium or The Great Silence) already so Leven urged his friend to call Oklahoma Bishop Victor Reed immediately instead of leaving first.
Leven said they went to a phone booth outside the seminary and called his uncle, the Most Rev. Stephen A. Leven, who was an auxillary bishop with the Diocese of San Antonio. He said his uncle put the call through to Bishop Reed, who told Rother to return to Oklahoma City immediately.
Leven said Rother had planned to visit with family in Texas before traveling back to his family farm in Okarche. Leven said he thinks speaking to the bishop immediately was a better approach, and it set Rother on the path to another seminary where Reed made sure he had a private tutor.
“I think this was one of the acts of God in his life to keep him in the seminary,” Leven said. “We never talked about it again, though.”
A shepherd until the end
Leven said another memory of Rother relates back to his last visit to see his friend in Guatemala.
Leven said he visited Rother at his beloved Santiago Atitlan parish many times over the 13 years his friend served there.
On his last Guatemalan visit with Rother on the year before his death, his friend already had witnessed some of the horrors of the Guatemalan civil war, particularly the mysterious disappearances of some of his parishioners whose bodies would later be found in ditches or other places around the parish.
Leven said Rother knew he was on a “death list” for supporting the poor people of his parish, but he didn’t want to leave his parishioners in their time of need.
“I told him ‘Why don’t you drive a truck out, and I will follow you in a truck and we will get out,’ “Leven said.
Rother couldn’t bear the thought of being a shepherd who would leave his sheep.
“He said ‘No, no. I’ll wait. I have my escape route planned,” Leven said.
The retired priest said he was to recall his friend’s words when he learned that he had been killed by unknown assailants. Leven said Rother had mapped out a back way out of the rectory in the event of just such an encounter, but his assailants apparently came into the rectory by way of his escape route.
“So he was caught,” Leven said.
“But he knew he was going to get killed when he went back. He had to go back. Despite the warnings of his parents and the bishop who said ‘Don’t go. Don’t go,’ he said he had to go because a shepherd does not leave his flock — and he was a shepherd.”
Comfort in Okarche
Leven said he encountered his friend’s comforting presence when he was appointed to serve as pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church, which was Rother’s hometown parish.
Leven said he had been assigned to the small parish after having been pastor of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Edmond. He said the transitions from one parish to another often were filled with some sadness because of all the friends one had to leave behind.
He said he drove in to Okarche and immediately went to the cemetery, where he found Rother’s grave site.
He said he remembers weeping there for some time before heading to Holy Trinity, where he would serve for several years as parish priest.
Leven said he felt the comfort of his old friend, and it helped ease the transition into a new parish.
Those recollections help keep Rother’s memory alive as Leven prepares to see his friend beatified.
“He was a good man and a faithful man,” Leven said.
He knew he was going to get killed when he went back. He had to go back. Despite the warnings of his parents and the bishop who said ‘Don’t go. Don’t go,’ he said he had to go because a shepherd does not leave his flock — and he was a shepherd.”
Marvin Leven, a retired priest with the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, about fellow seminarian Stanley Rother.