By Karina Fabian

Deacon Tom McCarthy of Missoula was a civil engineer for years and drew often on his analytical skill, but there was nothing analytical about his decision to become a deacon. He simply said “yes” to the calling.

“In the summer of 1985, I was awakened with an internal locution from Mary saying, ‘Get up my son. Pray and prepare yourself,’” Deacon McCarthy said. “Being an analytical, engineering type and not particularly devout, this was rather a shock, to say the least.”

He experienced recurring spiritual messages, began to pray the rosary and in the fall of ’85 he had a life-changing prayer experience with Bishop Elden F. Curtiss, who was guiding the Diocese of Helena and retired this year as archbishop of Omaha.

Following preparation through the Program of Formation for Lay Ministers, Deacon McCarthy was ordained at Missoula’s Holy Family Parish in 1992.

He served for 12 years as Holy Family’s director of Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. Now Deacon McCarthy serves in several capacities at Blessed Trinity Parish, which resulted from the 2006 merger of the Holy Family and Pope John XXIII parishes.

He is spiritual director for the diocesan Cursillo Secretariat, and is on the Diocesan Pastoral Council and its Evangelization Committee.

Deacon McCarthy, 64, was born in northwestern Iowa and educated in Catholic schools. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Iowa State University, and is a Vietnam veteran.

He moved to Montana in 1971 for engineering work in missile-base construction at Conrad. Later he became a partner in the Missoula engineering firm WGM Group, where he was a civil engineer and land surveyor until retiring in 2007. His wife Linda, a Butte native whose maiden name is Pericich, is a bank loan officer.

“I often joke that there are two ways of becoming a native Montanan, and that is by birth or by marrying a girl from Butte,” Deacon McCarthy said. “It has never been questioned.”

The McCarthys are the parents of Krista, who lives in Sacramento, Calif., with her husband and four children; Keetje, who lives in Sacramento with her husband and five children; and Shamus, a University of Montana student planning to attend medical school.

“Linda and I can say that our most significant accomplishment has been that our children are deeply committed to lives of faith lived in the Catholic Church,” Deacon McCarthy said. He said he wants “everyone to know our God with that unimaginable love that awaits us, if we can but choose.”

He and his wife enjoy travel and hope to do more of it after she retires this spring. Family trips have included pilgrimages to Rome and to Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Big-game hunting has taken Deacon McCarthy to many parts of North America, and to Africa four times.


Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 25, No. 11, November 20, 2009.