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

Although a priest of the Diocese of Helena, Msgr. John McCarthy has actually served the Church across the globe, from Rome to Missouri.

He was born in Butte, graduated from Carroll College with degrees in philosophy and history, then went to seminary at the North American College in Rome, Italy, where he was ordained in 1955. He returned to Carroll College, where he taught a variety of courses until being sent back to Rome in 1959 for an advanced degree in canon law.

Msgr. McCarthy remained in Italy until 2000. First, he taught at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome for two years. Next, he spent 29 years working at the Vatican in the office for the Congregation for the Oriental Churches of the Holy See, where he oversaw the distribution of funds coming from America for the Near East.

“It was very gratifying work. There are 22 Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church. Many of these are in the poor areas of the Middle East, Africa, India and Eastern Europe. We provided subsidies to the dioceses. We were maintaining seminaries, novitiates of sisters, orphanages… We started the orphanage program when I was in the office and were supporting 20,000 needy children when I left. We were rebuilding Catholic churches. It was a very big operation,” he said.

In 1994, arrangements were made for funds to go directly from the United States to the dioceses, and Msgr. McCarthy became director of the Vatican City offices of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association and the Pontifical Mission for Palestine. He worked there as a liaison between the Near East churches and the Vatican until 2000.

Also, he was involved in ministry in the United States. In 1979, he founded the Society of the Oblates of Wisdom, an organization of diocesan priests dedicated to fostering the dogmatic, moral and mystical traditions of the Church in the spirit of Vatican II. Members serve in their own dioceses, but follow a somewhat more rigorous lifestyle, abstaining from tobacco and liquor, having a special devotion to Mary, wearing clerical clothing at all reasonable times and paying particular attention to vows of wisdom and chastity.

“I saw a need [for the association] because there were many changes and challenges arising after the Second Vatican Council in the areas of spirituality and theology. It was founded to provide a channel for diocesan priests to contribute to the solution of these problems,” he explained.

He returned to the U.S. in 2000 to work with the Oblates. He served 15 months at an Oblates of Wisdom parish in Ponce, Puerto Rico; then moved to La Crosse, Wis., and served for four years as pastor of St. Wenceslaus Parish in Eastman, Wis. In the summer of 2005, he moved to St Louis, Mo., and opened a study center and pre-theology formation program.

Although he has not spent much time in the diocese that gave him his start, Msgr. McCarthy has served the diocese by making the Church stronger, here and abroad.


Published in the Montana Catholic, Vol. 22, No. 7, July 21, 2006.