We invite readers to send short stories about the ways in which their lives have been personally blessed by the life and work of priests and religious in our diocese.

By Karina Fabian

Father Ken Fortney always knew he’d do something in ministry, but it took a choice of college and falling in with a crowd of seminarians with a sense of fun as well as faith to influence him to join the priesthood.

Father Fortney was a “military brat,” spending his childhood on bases from Texas to Taiwan. His parents were not especially religious, but made sure he and his sister always attended Sunday school wherever they were, and as he got older, he became active in his church. He attended high school in Darby, where school counselors recommended Carroll College. “They were thinking of the smaller class sizes. Of course, I was directing the choir in the Baptist church at the time, so you can imagine their reaction,” he said.

The first friends he found at Carroll were seminarians. They never forced his faith, but found fun ways to influence him, especially Kevin O’Neill, now a monsignor. “I was in the chapel, playing on the big pipe organ, and he came in. He went to the sacristy and found the holy water, and started sprinkling me with it! ‘I’m going to make you a Catholic,’ he said,” Father Fortney remembered.

His sophomore year, he joined the Carrolleers, a college choir which sang at Masses. He found the Eucharist drew him. “The closeness of Christ, to be able to receive Christ at Mass is one of the most incredible gifts,” he said. He soon joined the Borromeo program.

Father Robert McCarthy ran the program, and, even though Fortney had not yet become a full Catholic, he arranged for the senior to visit with Bishop Raymond Hunthausen. “For two hours we talked about my going to seminary. I finally said, ‘Well, I think I should be confirmed first.’ ” That evening, mere hours after his request, Father Fortney was confirmed in the Borromeo Hall Chapel. He knew he was going to seminary before most of his fellow classmates did.

Nonetheless, he waited a year before actually entering. He worked in a day-care center, applying his degree in elementary education, and as choir director at St. Alexander Parish in Cornelius, Ore. Afterward, he attended St. Thomas Seminary in Washington state. When the seminary closed in his third year, he worked at St. Joseph Parish in Butte before finishing his studies at Mount Angel Seminary in Oregon. He graduated and was ordained in 1979.

His parents, he said, were very proud. “My dad used to go around town saying, ‘My son, the priest,’ ” he recalled.

Father Fortney served as associate pastor at Immaculate Conception, Butte (79-81) and St. John, Butte, while chaplain at Butte Central High School (1981-82), and at St. Rose of Lima, Dillon with missions in Melrose, Wisdom and Lima (1982-85).

He has been pastor at St. Thomas the Apostle, Helmville, and served at St. Jude, Lincoln, and in the diocese Communications Office in 1985 and 1986. From 1986 to 1989, he was pastor at Immaculate Conception, part of Butte Catholic Community North, then as pastor at St. Joseph, Harlowton with missions in Shawmut and Judith Gap, and sacramental minister, St. Bartholomew, White Sulphur Springs until 1997. From 1997 to 1999, he was pastor at St. Michael, Drummond, and mission, Gold Creek; St. Philip, Phillipsburg; then moved to be pastor at Sanders County Catholic Community – St. William, Thompson Falls and mission Noxon; St. James, Plains and mission Hot Springs.

He still feels the awe of the gift of Eucharist, saying it’s the greatest gift of his priesthood, and where he feels most energized.

Father Fortney asks that everyone pray for vocations: to the priesthood, the diaconate, the religious life. “I know there are a lot of men out there that have the calling, but it’s hard to let them know that it’s a good life and to be open to the calling – because you never know how or where you will be called!”

After all, not everyone has a friend who will sprinkle them with holy water.


Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 24, No. 9, September 19, 2008.