Second-year University of Iowa student Colin Olney saw Rev. Guillermo Treviño as a kid at heart. Many Iowa City residents shared similar sentiments about the Catholic priest.
Olney attended Regina Catholic High School, the school where Treviño served as chaplain. Olney said he recalls seeing Treviño at a Regina Catholic High School football game just a week before he died, energetic as ever.
Treviño died on Oct. 31 at the UI Medical Center from a stomach perforation that sprang from undiagnosed diabetes, according to the Catholic News Agency. Treviño was 39 years old.
“He was a very fun priest,” Olney recalled. “He always made sure that the students were engaged at mass to the best that they could be. He would always tell jokes at the start of mass. He was the kind of guy who wanted to connect with students.”
Olney said he especially remembers his love of WrestleMania and anything to do with comic book characters.
He said he remembered one occasion where Treviño handed out pictures of himself with Captain Marvel actress Brie Larson after he had come back from Comic-Con.
“That was his Christmas card, and he printed them out and was just giving them out to students after Mass, this picture of him with these Marvel actors,” he said. “It was really funny. That’s definitely a standout about him — his love of life.”
RELATED: UI Catholics react to Pope Francis’ death
Rev. Jeff Belger, the priest director of the Newman Catholic Student Center, said Treviño amply fulfilled a priest’s calling to serve their community.
“He was very involved at the Catholic Worker House, where they have been helping immigrant families find food and shelter, but also legal representation and other things to help them navigate all the realities of their world in a chaotic situation,” he said.
Treviño’s obituary also notes he was a founding member and chaplain of Escucha Mi Voz, an immigrant workers’ rights organization based in Iowa City.
Treviño led a crowd of Escucha Mi Voz members in prayer and participated in a rally protesting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, arrest of Jorge Elieser Gonzalez Ochoa on Sept. 26.
According to the obituary, Treviño received the National 2022 Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award, which recognizes a Catholic who has shown leadership against poverty and injustice in the U.S.
“The reality of our society and culture today is one of isolation and division,” Belger said. “And Father Guillermo was great at entering into the lives of anyone in front of him and meeting them where they are and leading them to a better relationship with Christ in His Church.”
Belger attended Treviño’s funeral service on Nov. 7 at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport, Iowa.
Deacon Kent Ferris, director of social action and Catholic charities at the Diocese of Davenport, said Treviño overcame many obstacles in his life.
In an email to The Daily Iowan, he wrote those obstacles ranged from his father dying when he was young to not being accepted when he first applied to the seminary, a theology driven school that trains men for the priesthood.
“But the challenges did not make him bitter. Rather, they helped him grow deeper in his trust in God and also his ability to be there for others,” Kent Ferris said.
Ferris said Pope Leo XIV stressed the importance of upholding the human dignity of immigrants, which Treviño practiced extensively through his work at the Catholic Worker House and Escucha Mi Voz.
“Father Guillermo understood that, was willing to go the extra mile, literally and figuratively, to stand in solidarity with immigrants who are so much a part of our life here in Iowa,” Ferris said. “He rose to the challenge of this moment and will be fondly remembered for doing so.”
Belger said Treviño’s dedication to the church was highlighted by his final days. Treviño visited the Vatican at the World Meeting of Popular Movements, an initiative started by the late Pope Francis to discuss structural changes for social, economic, and racial justice.
He returned from Rome just hours before he died in Iowa City.
“He was personally invited to go over [to Rome], and that was the last thing he did was represent the local churches of the Davenport Diocese at an international venue of the Vatican,” Belger said. “You can’t make that person up, only God can.”