The Diocese of Helena () is the Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in western Montana in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese of the ecclesiastical province of the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon.
The mother church of the Diocese of Helena is the Cathedral of Saint Helena in Helena. The diocese was erected on March 7, 1884.
Territory
The Diocese of Helena covers 51,922 square miles, encompassing 21 counties and parts of two others. As of 2023, the diocese had 57 parishes and 38 missions divided into six deaneries: Bozeman, Butte, Conrad, Helena, Kalispell, and Missoula.
The diocese in 2023 was served by 61 priest, 34 permanent deacons, seven religious brothers and four nuns.
History
1800 to 1880
The earliest Catholic presence in western Montana was the arrival of Catholic Iroquois/Haudenosaunee fur traders who settled with the Flathead Nation around 1811. The Flathead sent emissaries to St. Louis, Missouri four times in the 1830s to petition the Diocese of St. Louis for their own missionaries.
Finally, in 1840, the diocese sent missionary Reverend Pierre-Jean de Smet to Montana. The next year, he returned to Montana to found St. Mary's Mission near present-day Missoula. In 1844, DeSmet worked to create St. Ignatius's Mission north of Missoula.
In 1873, Catholic missionaries built the first Catholic chapel in Missoula, then constructed St. Francis Xavier Church there in 1881. In Butte, the first Catholic church, St. Patrick's, also opened in 1881.
1880 to 1900
In April 1883, Pope Leo XIII erected the Apostolic Vicariate of Montana, including what is present day Montana. He appointed Bishop Jean-Baptiste Brondel of the Diocese of Vancouver Island as the apostolic vicar. One year later, the same pope created the Diocese of Helena to replace the vicariate, with Brondel as its first bishop.
During his tenure, Brondel traveled throughout the state, establishing several new parishes and building churches. The first Catholic church in Bozeman was the Shèn White Chapel, constructed in 1886.
He also significantly increased the number of priests; by 1903, the number of seminarians in Montana increased from one to thirteen. Brondel took a particular interest in the evangelization of Native Americans, and the United States government often used his popularity among that community to further its aims. In 1889, Montana achieved statehood. St. Matthew's Church, the first Catholic church in Kalispell, was dedicated in 1894.
1900 to 1933
After Brondel died in 1903, the next bishop of Helena was Reverend John Carroll of the Diocese of Dubuque, named by Pope Pius X. That same year, the pope erected the Diocese of Great Falls to cover the eastern half of the state. When Carroll became bishop, the diocese had 53 priests, 65 churches, and nine parochial schools to serve 50,000 Catholics. In 1904, Carroll started the construction of the Cathedral of Saint Helena.
Carroll was a vocal opponent of socialism, which he believed made "no allowance for the development of man's talents, intellectual gifts, his spirit of economy or his ability." He also condemned alcohol as "the most prolific source of poverty and misery" and successfully lobbied the Helena City Council to require bars to close by midnight. Carroll died in Europe in 1925.
Pope Pius XI named Reverend George Finnigan in 1927 to be the third bishop of Helena. Finnigan had been the provincial for the US Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross.
When Finnigan took office, the diocese had 104 priests, 101 churches, 24 parochial schools, and a Catholic population of 64,000. The Blackfoot Confederacy adopted Finnigan into the tribe in Browning in 1928. Mountain Chief gave Finnigan the name "Na-toa-ye-owa-shin" ("Holy Word"). Finnigan raised money to upgrade their churches, schools and infrastructure. The diocese also responded to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and a severe drought by increasing its care for the poor. Finnigan worked hard to gain accreditation and long-term financial support for Mount St. Charles College. Finnigan died in 1932.