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

While Father Robert Porter did not become Catholic until an adult, he has found the fullness of his life within it.

Father Porter grew up in Deer Lodge and graduated form the University of Montana in 1970, but it was in 1974 while working in Illinois that he became Catholic. “I was at a time in my life when I was filled up with questions and concerns. I got involved in the civil rights movement and a number of issues associated with the poor. As I met people who were profoundly involved with social issues, I came in contact with priests, brothers and sisters, and I began to understand Catholicism and saw it had social justice as a mandate.”

Not long afterward, the bishop of his diocese recruited him and 11 others for the priesthood. “He called us his special students because we were delayed in our vocations,” Father Porter said.

He said he also found he had a calling to teach, and after his ordination in 1981, he was both a priest and high school teacher at various parishes in Illinois. He also got his doctorate in historical theology so he could “give real content to what I was going to proclaim and teach.”

His vocation took a slight turn when his mother became ill and asked him to come home. “The bishops graciously allowed me to come back and become parish administrator in St. Rose of Lima Parish in Dillon.”

When his term was up, he was asked to stay on. He said he agreed to stay, because he originally hoped that he might get the chance to teach at Carroll College, but the shortage of parish priests has compelled him to set that dream aside for the moment. “The shortage of priests here is so significant and so profound, it makes your heart ache. There’s so much to do,” he said. He has been pastor both in Dillon and at Deer Lodge.

However, he still felt a need to both teach and work for social justice. Earlier this year, Bishop George Thomas presented him with the opportunity to feed that need. He directed him to begin ministry at the state prison.

Although Father Porter had no real training or qualifications in that area, he has found it a fertile ground for both social action and exercising his teaching skills. “These guys (the prisoners) are not stupid. They come from difficult circumstances and have never been able to successfully negotiate life.”

He is on a government committee on the homeless and is looking at the needs of convicts and their families as they make the transition back to society.

In particular, he is working on bringing in a pioneer human services program that has been extremely successful in Seattle and San Francisco. The program gives ex-convicts the education, training and skills for three different kinds of jobs. Even more importantly, the program helps restore their dignity.

“We take them from where they are and restore them to the fullness of their humanness,” he said. While they are still working on getting the funding for the program, Father Porter is very excited by the prospects it presents.

He is also planning a basic Catholicism class for the prison “because I believe God made me to be a teacher.”

While Father Porter’s priesthood has not taken him exactly where he’d wanted, he has always felt it has gone according to God’s will. He identifies greatly with Gideon, who cast out a fleece before the Lord. Wherever the fleece landed was the direction Gideon took.

“My fleece before the Lord has always been my bishops. They have helped me discern myself, given me clarity. It’s within the context of the Church that my life has value, in the context of the people of God that my work makes any sense.”


Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 21, No. 9, October 21, 2005.