The Rev. William Ortmann

1932 - 2010

The Rev. William Ortmann used to say that married couples were his heroes, and he did everything possible to help thousands of couples work through problems to repair troubled marriages and to make good marriages better.

The Rev. Ortmann, a longtime San Diego clergyman, worked with engaged and married couples in the Catholic Diocese of San Diego and brought the Retrouvaille program to San Diego nearly 20 years ago. The program, which started in Quebec in 1977 and spread to the United States in the 1980s, is billed as a lifeline for troubled marriages.

The Rev. Ortmann died of cancer Jan. 27 in Sioux City, Iowa, where he had moved in late December. He was 77.

Friends and co-workers said he was a beloved priest who was loving and compassionate, and they credited him with saving many marriages and families.

“People found him to be open and easy to talk to,” said Cathy Vrabel of Carlsbad.

She and her husband, Fred, were among the couples who helped establish San Diego Retrouvaille with the Rev. Ortmann in 1991. Retrouvaille means “rediscovery” in French. The Vrabels had gone through the program in Los Angeles in the late 1980s and the Rev. Ortmann recruited them to help start the program locally.

“He saw the need for the program in San Diego. If it hadn’t been for Father Bill, I don’t know if we would have the program here now,” Cathy Vrabel said. “He was very ecumenical; you don’t have to be Catholic to participate in the program. He had a strong desire to reach out to anyone in a hurting marriage.”

Pilar Cardenas of La Jolla had known the Rev. Ortmann since she was a child and he was a parish priest at St. Vincent de Paul. Cardenas, a marriage and family counselor, reconnected with him when she interned at Catholic Charities and the Rev. Ortmann was a counselor there.

“He loved people and had a good sense of humor,” she said.

He felt that helping married couples was his true calling, Cardenas said.

“He was very dedicated to the family life and to the priesthood,” said the Rev. Steve Grancini of Our Lady of the Rosary parish.

After the Rev. Ortmann retired from the diocese in 1999, he continued to give his time and money to the Marriage Encounter and Retrouvaille programs, Grancini said.

Fred and Cathy Vrabel said the Rev. Ortmann often traveled throughout the country to conduct Retrouvaille programs in areas that didn’t have a priest to lead them.

“He was a very gentle soul who had compassion and empathy for all people,” said Rosemarie Solis-Manquero, who worked with the Rev. Ortmann in the diocese office. “He was a people’s priest. He said working with married couples made him a better priest. It was a very special ministry to him.”

The Rev. Ortmann was born March 12, 1932, in Iowa to Henry and Regina Ortmann. He grew up in Remsen, Iowa, and earned a bachelor’s degree at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1953 and attended Mount St. Bernard Seminary in Dubuque. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1957.

After serving in several Iowa parishes, he moved to San Diego in 1968 and served at St. Charles in Imperial Beach. He also served at St. Joseph Cathedral and St. Mary’s in National City. After earning a master’s degree in education/counseling at San Diego State University in 1974, the Rev. Ortmann was named director of diocesan personnel. In 1978, he began serving as director of Marriage Encounter, a ministry for married couples. He was named director of the Diocesan Office for Marriage and Family Life in 1991.

He is survived by a sister, Jeanette Koch of Remsen, Iowa; two brothers, Donald of Remsen and Louis of Festus, Mo.; and several nieces and nephews.

Funeral services and burial took place Monday in Iowa. A memorial Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. today at St. Joseph Cathedral, 1535 Third Ave., San Diego.