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 Eric Gilbaugh is a builder: building cars, building homes, building faiths and building the Church.

Born in 1977 in Portland, Ore., Eric Gilbaugh grew up in the same neighborhood where his father played as a child. He attended an inner-city elementary school and had the unique experience of being in the minority as a white student. He enjoyed it and said his mother, a social worker, appreciated that her children had a multi-cultural experience.

In the Jesuit high school that was his father’s alma mater, he had the “consummate All-American High School Experience”: football, clubs and friendships that stand even today. He also had a not-so-typical experience: Learning from Jesuits, he found himself drawn to the religious life. “The example of the Jesuits – the simplicity and service – inspired me. I started to think about the possibility of being a priest,” he said.

In addition to serving in the Mass at school, he was active in a high-school men’s faith-support group called the Knights. “That’s where the Lord began sowing seeds in my heart for working with young men to foster their faith and vocations,” he said.

He won several scholarships, but when he visited Carroll College, he fell in love with Montana and with the school’s discernment program, which allowed him to study whatever he liked while exploring his vocation.

By graduation, he knew he wanted to be a priest in Montana. He attended St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver and was ordained into the Diocese of Helena in 2005.

He currently serves in his first assignment as parochial vicar to the Cathedral of St. Helena. He also works as the recruitment director of the priestly vocation program, which brought his own vocation to life. He said, “That’s one thing that gets me really fired up: promoting priestly vocations. Meeting with the young men at the college who come to the meeting is one of the highlights of my week.”

The other highlight, of course, is celebrating the Mass itself. He called it a “privileged intimacy.”

“When holding the body and blood of Christ in your own hands, you can’t be any closer to God, and to do that every day is just amazing.” He also gets fired up while preaching the Word of God; he said it brings out the teacher in him.

In his off-time, however, he enjoys working with more concrete things. He and Father Dougald McCallum enjoy restoring old cars and a few years ago, he asked himself, “If I like old cars, why not old houses?”

He’s currently restoring two old homes in Butte which he bought from the city for $500 each. The city sold them and several others as part of a program to restore that area and to prevent the houses from becoming dangerously dilapidated or from being taken over by drug dealers. He’s not sure what he’ll do with them when he’s done, but for now, he simply enjoys the experience and the knowledge that he’s helping the city.


Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 23, No. 5, May 18, 2007.