By Karina Fabian

Gerald “Gerry” Kuhl’s deaconship took a long time coming to term, but he has greatly treasured the journey. He attended minor seminary with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in high school, but felt he needed more experience before deciding to join the priesthood.

He joined the Air Force after graduation and served in France for three years as an air traffic controller. Upon his return, he re-entered the seminary, spending another four and a half years with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. His uncle, a Brother with the missionaries, inspired his vocational pursuit. While he’d originally thought to follow in his missionary footsteps, tensions within the order gave him pause and contributed to his decision to leave.

He met Judy while working at a summer youth camp. They became friends. After he had left the seminary and was attending Loyola University in New Orleans, they met again. Judy, a registered nurse, worked with the open heart cardiac surgery team at a nearby hospital.

Their friendship blossomed into love and they were married in 1970. They have four children, three of whom work in the medical field. Their eldest daughter, Alicia Elmer, is a physical therapist/ manager. Their son, Jason, and his wife, Karen, are both medical doctors.

Their daughter Kristina Porsi is a clinical dietician; her husband, Luke, is a flight surgeon with a special operations squadron serving in Iraq. Their youngest, Martin, and his wife, Abby, both teach at elementary schools in the Helena area.

Gerry and Judy have two grandsons and are expecting their first granddaughter in September.

Gerry received his master’s in counseling from Oregon State University in 1973 and worked for the American Red Cross as a personnel and training director of a Chapter, Division and Northwest Blood Program in Portland, while Judy worked as a general surgery nurse at Providence Hospital.

The Kuhls returned to Montana in 1975 and joined Mary Queen of Heaven Mission in Superior. While there, their pastor, Father Jim Thomas, invited the couple to consider training for the permanent diaconate. They moved to Conrad, but the resident pastors at the time chose to wait on the potential addition of a deacon.

In 1981, the family moved to Helena, where Gerry accepted the position of executive director of St. Peter’s Hospital Foundation in Helena. He finished the deacon program. After cycling through it three times over a nine-year period, he was finally ordained in 1984 at the Cathedral of St. Helena.

In 1987, he moved his family to Rapid City, S.D., where he took a job as vice president of Rushmore Health Systems. Two years later, Bishop Curtiss invited him to return to Helena to develop the fledgling Western Montana Catholic Foundation. He became executive director and served as deacon at the cathedral.

In 1993, he was asked to assist Msgr. Joseph Mavsar, pastor of St. Cyril and Methodius Parish in East Helena. He served there for the next 13 years before returning to the cathedral in 2006.

Gerry retired from the Foundation (now called the Foundation for the Diocese of Helena) in July 2007 and began volunteering at the Fort Harrison Veteran’s Administration. He intended to just help with answering phones in the Homeless Veteran Program office, but soon found that he needed computer access which led to part-time employment, which in turn led to full time. Subsequently, he became the VA Montana Program Coordinator.

Deacon Kuhl considers himself richly blessed during most of his professional life in that much of his work intertwined with his diaconal ministry of outreach and charitable service. “Outreach in service to the poor is a mission that resonates deeply with me, and I find a sense of both purpose and satisfaction in such work. I owe gratitude and recognition for my ability to do so to the affirming support of my wife and our family.”


Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 25, No. 8, August 21, 2009.