Stanley Ott, our third bishop, a servant of the people of God

It was October of 1963, my fourth year in Rome, the only student that year from the newly created Diocese of Baton Rouge, at the North American College.  In Rome, seminarians live in colleges and attend universities.  Our university was the Gregorian, near the Trevi Fountain.  Jesuit priests were our professors.  Bishop Robert E. Tracy was the founding bishop of our diocese in the fall of 1961 and was overjoyed to become a “Father” of the Second Vatican Council which had begun in October 1962.  Now he was back to attend the second session.  He had brought with him Msgr. Stanley Ott, his diocesan chancellor, the third in rank in the Baton Rouge diocese.  The year before he had brought to the opening session his second in command, Vicar General, Msgr. Patrick Gillespie.  
Bishop Tracy called to invite me to lunch with himself and Msgr. Ott. I was to pick a restaurant and make reservations.  On the day of the lunch the bishop called and apologized for having to attend a “business luncheon” with some other bishops. 
“But you go out to lunch with ‘Doctor Ott;’ he has a diocesan credit card,” Bishop Tracy said.

I stammered “Thank you, but where do I meet him, and I don’t know what he looks like.”  “Oh, meet him on the corner of the Via Conciliazione, right hand side, facing St. Peter’s square, the corner nearest the basilica.  He is rather short.”  
Since neither of us had Italian names, and he would probably be wearing what the Italians called “Il clergyman,” white collar and back suit,  I figured we could make the connection.  Besides, like all seminarians from NAC, I had to wear a black cassock with rad sash, white collar, and blue buttons.   He would probably spot me first, which he did.  
“Are you John Carville?” he asked with a New Orleans drawl.  “And you must be Msgr. Ott?” I said.  “Yes, and please do me a favor.  You call a cab and give the driver the address of the restaurant.  I still speak a little Italian but I can’t roll my r’s.”  
You might wonder why I begin a column meant to praise a wonderful and holy bishop by poking fun at him.  But that is who Bishop Stanley Ott was.  He was a little man whose love for others was so strong and his joy at meeting new people so great that he never let his weakness or hesitancy  stop him.  He could make decisions but he could also change them when the people explained why they might be adversely affected.  He never let his ego trump his kindness and wisdom.  Oh, and “Dr. Ott” was not just one of Bishop Tracy’s jokes.  Stanley earned a doctorate in theology from the Gregorian, going back after ordination to study for three more years.   I could not guess at that first meeting how much our lives would be intertwined.  I returned from Rome in July of 1964 and was assigned to St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Baton Rouge.  Msgr. Donald Borders was the pastor.  Msgr. Ott was in residence there, with his full-time job being chancellor in the diocesan offices only a block away from the cathedral in the old Fidelity Bank building across Main Street in downtown Baton Rouge. 
It was wonderful for me to live with someone whom I knew was both a model and mentor of what it meant to be a good priest.  He was also very generous, making sure out of his own money that I had enough (money) to go on vacation.  Newly ordained priests in those days did not have to pay federal income tax; our salaries put us below the poverty line.
Msgr. Ott became rector of the cathedral parish when Msgr. Borders was appointed founding bishop of the Diocese of Orlando, Florida.  We had a great time sending off the new bishop of Disney World.  
Msgr. Borders had been the leader Bishop Tracy chose to chair a committee of lay men and women who planned the implementation of Vatican II.  They saw to it  parishes in the diocese had parish councils,  finance councils and liturgical committees to bring about the full participation of the laity in parish structures and the new rites for Mass and sacraments ordered by the Ecumenical Council.  Bishop Borders had great organizational gifts but in succeeding him Bishop Ott showed a more natural feel for the new liturgy.  Cathedral liturgies became a model for the diocese.  And the cathedral parishioners loved their pastor.
Then-Msgr. Ott became Bishop Ott, assigned by the pope as an auxiliary bishop to Archbishop Philip Hannan in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Bishop Ott moved into the archbishop’s residence on the same property as Notre Dame Seminary on Carrollton Avenue in Uptown New Orleans.  
Not long after, I began 10 years of teaching and living at the seminary.  Although having very different personalities, the two bishops seemed to get along well.  They both loved public occasions and just being among their people.  And I enjoyed eating out in New Orleans with Bishop Stanley.  For a small man, he could demolish a plate of crawfish faster than anyone.  
Here in Baton Rouge a new bishop was chosen to succeed Bishop Tracy, Bishop Joseph V. Sullivan from Kansas City, Missouri.  For eight years the diocese sort of went backwards as far as its newspaper and Vatican II structures.  The morale of the priests and many of their parishioners diminished.  
However, having been a superintendent of Catholic Schools in Kansas City, Bishop Sullivan did leave our diocese as his legacy a new Catholic high school, St. Michael the Archangel in Baton Rouge.  When Bishop Sullivan died after eight years in office, the Vatican recognized the need of a new bishop who could be a healer and a unifier.  They picked the perfect person, Bishop Stanley J. Ott.  He came back to his church home gleefully.
God never lets us get too comfortable, which is a good thing.  Bishop Ott’s strong point began to give him trouble.  Frustration had built up during the past eight years, and everyone, priests and people, wanted an appointment with the bishop.  His open-door policy was causing a log-jam.  Too many people with too many problems were waiting to get any kind of resolution to their problem.
The priests demanded a meeting and Bishop Ott obliged. Some voiced their complaints politely, others not so.  Bishop Ott’s response to each was simply, “Thank you.”  He promised a solution would be found. Privately, he never complained, no matter how rude or unfair anyone was to him.
After a short time in office, Bishop Ott made me his vicar general.  Someone, I can’t remember whom, gave me the name of a Father Harms from New Jersey who was a management consultant to Catholic dioceses and institutions.  We formed a restructuring committee and hired Father Harms.  With his help, we created a secretariat system to govern the different departments of the diocese.  The heads of large departments, like Catholic Charities and Schools, became secretaries, while smaller departments were grouped together and the bishop would choose secretaries for each group.
There would be a secretariat meeting monthly including all of the secretaries with the bishop, vicar general and chancellor.  This worked.  It broke the log-jam and gave us some lagniappe.  The bishop could get out of his office and deal with people’s personal problems, which he loved.  And at budget-setting time, every secretary had heard in the monthly meetings during the past year about everyone else’s problems and financial needs, and usually moderated their own requests.
The diocese went along well for five or six more years and almost everyone seemed happy.  There was one small group who didn’t like the Vatican II changes and published pamphlets criticizing Bishop Ott and his staff.  He just shrugged and carried on.  
The priests seemed to be getting closer to their bishop.  On our yearly retreats at Manresa, Bishop Ott would run with us on the Mississippi River levee in front of the retreat house.  Other clergy get-togethers he loved to plan were at places like Hemingbough, near St. Francisville.  He also made friends with all of the non-Catholic clergy in town – Protestant, Evangelical, Jewish, Black, White, Mormon, Buddhist.  They were all welcome to ecumenical services in his cathedral, and he would go to their places of worship. 
I went with him one year to a national bishops’ meeting in Washington, D.C. and was amazed at how all the bishops there seemed to know the little bishop from Baton Rouge.  
It was a shock, which is more than an understatement, when he called me into his office and simply said, “I have liver cancer, and the doctor tells me I have six-months to live.”  I knew his doctor well, and he would not make a mistake on something like that.  When the word got out, everyone in Baton Rouge and the wider diocese was shocked.  Immediately, many told him to go to M.D. Anderson in Houston.  His doctor came to see me for breakfast, and said that Bishop Ott could get the same treatment in Baton Rouge.  “Yes,” I said, “but his people won’t be satisfied until he goes to Houston.”  So he went and returned perfectly at peace.  They gave him six months.  He lived for 18 months.  
There were more fellow bishops and leaders of other faiths at his funeral than have ever gathered in Baton Rouge.  Requiescat in pace, Stanley.   

Father Carville is a retired priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge and writes on current topics for The Catholic Commentator. He can be reached at johnny [email protected].