EAST HELENA -- When Bart Tolleson first considered the priesthood, he stayed up most of the evening. Unable to sleep, the Texas native feared he was losing his mind. The priesthood seemed like a radical lifestyle that ran contrary to his life's greater plan.

A convert to the Catholic faith, Tolleson studied film at New York University and considered making movies. He felt he had a gift for teaching. If nothing else, he thought, he might become a college professor.

"Working on my Ph.D., I was actually doing a project looking at pictures of images in cinema that reflected purgatory," Tolleson said while seated in Saints Cyril and Methodius Parish two weeks before his ordination. "I took a night class about Roman Catholic apologetics. I thought it would teach me something about purgatory. It made a lot of sense to me."

Tolleson, along with Helena native Stuart Long, was ordained as a priest Friday, Dec. 14, in a colorful ceremony at the Cathedral of St. Helena's. The event celebrated the history and gilded tradition of the Catholic Church. It also marked the first time a priest had been ordained within the Helena Diocese since June 2006.

With their soft-spoken ways and quiet confidence, Tolleson and Long defy a priestly stereotype rooted in popular culture, from the crucifix wielding priest in the "Omen" to the murderous monk doing the deeds of Opus Dei in "The Da Vinci Code."

What's more, both men entered the seminary at the height of the sex-abuse scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church after the Boston Globe broke the story in 2002. They were in formation when Pope John Paul II passed away in 2005 and Joseph Ratzinger was ordained Pope Benedict XVI.

Despite the setbacks and losses in the past, the Roman Catholic Church has endured. It continues to attract new followers around the world and draw new men, like Tolleson and Long, to the priesthood.

Tolleson, a former Protestant, along with Long, a Golden Gloves boxing champion and former football player at Carroll College under Bob Petrino, are focused on the future. Like those who flanked the altar during their ordination, they're ready to serve as a bridge between God and the 61,000 parishioners scattered across western Montana.

"I didn't grow up in the Catholic Church," Tolleson said. "But I did grow up as a Christian -- as a very strong Christian. Once I began to study Catholicism, it began to make a lot of sense to me. The answers to the puzzle, for me, were found in the Catholic Church."

The number of men in the seminary is up worldwide. When Pope John Paul II was elected pontiff in 1978, more than 63,880 men were in the seminary. By 2004, shortly before his death in 2005, roughly 113,000 men were enrolled in the program.

In the U.S., however, the numbers suggest a slight decline. In 1978, around 9,020 men were enrolled in the seminary and studying to become a priest. But by 2004, the numbers had fallen to 4,553 men, according to figures provided by the diocese.

The Rev. Eric Gilbaugh, a 30-year-old priest ordained in the Helena Diocese in 2005, believes the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and '70s played a large hand in the decline of men enrolled in the seminary. He believes it also brought about an age of suspicion towards authority. The Roman Catholic Church didn't escape unscathed.

But as the director of the priest seminary program at Carroll College, Gilbaugh has seen a rebound among students interested in religion and the seminary. The culture of suspicion is slowly diminishing. While it still lingers, he believes it isn't as powerful among today's college students as it was when he was younger.

Gilbaugh described today's youth as a generation largely free of suspicion. They grew up in a secular society with open minds. As a result, Gilbaugh said, they may be open to the teachings of Christ, which means the church may have a brighter future.

"The seminary I went to is an excellent example of the situation of the church," Gilbaugh said. "It was built in the 1920s and expanded in the 1950s. It closed in 1995 for lack of numbers (seminarians). Four years later it was reopened under a new name. Now they don't have room for all the guys. They're renovating old convents throughout the city of Denver to accommodate them."

Tolleson has witnessed the same growth described by Gilbaugh in the seminary. In the seven years that have passed since he entered the seminary at St. Mary's in Houston, Texas, enrollment there has nearly doubled. At St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., the seminary was down to around 20 men in the 1980s. Now, Tolleson said, it has rebounded to nearly 120 men.

"I think what we're seeing is a trend of more guys answering the call," Tolleson said. "The issue with that is that it takes time to become a priest -- seven years typically. You don't just turn out priests in six months. It takes time to develop that. But I think there's a lot of hope on the horizon."

Today's candidates for the priesthood may be stronger than in years past. Bishop George Thomas, who grew up in Anaconda and now heads the Helena Diocese, said today's seminarians have more experience in life than he did upon first entering the seminary more than 30 years ago.

Thomas, who placed his hands upon the heads of both Tolleson and Long during their ordination, welcoming the two men into the fold, said such worldly experience enriches the Catholic faith. It also benefits those who subscribe to its teachings.

"These guys, in most cases, are coming in with a heck of a lot more experience in life than I ever had," Thomas said. "My vocation evolved over a lot of years. But these guys come with a lot more sophistication, a lot more worldly experience. They come with a maturity and a depth that I didn't have."

Gilbaugh and Tolleson described a more selective recruitment and screening process within the seminary. There was a period, they agreed, when that wasn't the case.

Years ago, Gilbaugh said, the seminary lacked a strong formation process. It was partially due to the number of men attempting to get into the program and, ultimately, the priesthood.

"You had more people and less of an evaluation process," he said. "Now it's extremely rigorous. We all take physical tests, psychological tests -- it's just intense. The focus was perhaps more on the learning -- on matters of the mind -- than on human formation."

Gilbaugh credited Pope John Paul II for reforming the seminary program. In doing so, the pontiff clarified the four principal areas of priestly formation. Spiritual, intellectual, pastoral and human qualities now stand as the four pillars of the priesthood, the last holding the greatest significance.

After all, Gilbaugh said, grace builds on nature.

"The Pope used that image of the bridge and the barrier," Gilbaugh said. "Just as Jesus -- though divine -- used his humanity as a bridge to others, so too must a priest. A priest's humanity can be a bridge to Christ or a barrier to Christ."

As a vocation, the priesthood is more than taking an oath and memorizing the Lord's Prayer. To his parishioners, he serves as a bridge to God. He is someone they can turn to for advice, someone who may help them find the path to salvation, or at least inspire them to live a more holistic life.

In the U.S., the Roman Catholic Church requires a bachelor's degree to start, with at least two years of philosophy and four years of theology. The candidate must gain acceptance into the seminary, pass both the psychological and physical screenings, and begin the long process of formation, during which he addresses his own shortcomings. Only then will he be considered for the priesthood.

"That's been the Church's tradition for centuries," Gilbaugh said of the studies. "First, you form a philosophical foundation, understanding how the world thinks, all the branches of thought, and just the grounding for truth. Then you build upon that with the truth of revelation."

In the seminary, most men spend their first year of formation focusing on spirituality. The year includes review of the Holy Bible and the Catechisms, reading the work of great saints, and serving the public through apostolic work (direct ministry).

The men are grounded in a life of prayer and familiarity with the scriptures. They work with the poor, serve as chaplains in hospitals and help in orphanages, all to improve their human qualities. Only then do they open the books to continue their intellectual pursuits.

Gilbaugh opened a collection of photos and with a smile showed off an image taken in the 1970s of a much younger Bishop Thomas and Monsignor Kevin O'Neill sitting among their peers at Carroll College.

"I said to my dad at age 5 that I wanted to be a priest," Thomas said. "I had a first-grade teacher, Mrs. Josephine McDermott, who was a very strong Catholic woman who taught our religious class on Saturdays. She also intimated, in my first grade, that maybe I was being called to the priesthood."

Not everyone considers the priesthood with the same surety as Thomas, and at such a young age. As for Tolleson, he came to the conclusion over time. He entered the priesthood last week with humble bow of his head.

"I'd always had a strong faith, but that faith got richer and deeper," he said. "Becoming Catholic, I wasn't learning about a new god. It was that the Lord, the Jesus that I loved and wanted to serve, was calling me into his place."

Reporter Martin Kidston: 447-4086 or mkidston@helenair.com.