Early Life
Fortin was born to a French-Canadian mother and an American father of French-Canadian stock. He was raised in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.
He attended Assumption College and Laval University, graduating from Assumption College in 1946. He had joined the Augustinians of the Assumption in 1944, and following graduation he attended the Angelicum in Rome for his theological education. He received his licentiate in 1950.
Following theological studies and ordination, he went to Paris, where he met Bloom. As he said in the Foley interview:
It was a class on Plato taught by a Dominican very well known in those days named Festugiere. It was a lousy course, quite frankly. Bloom sat next to me on my left and would make little comments to me on the text, comments which I found more interesting than Festugiere's. Those teachers, outstanding as their reputation may have been, were no great shakes.
At first I was a little bit shocked by Bloom's remarks. I had an innate reverence for famous people, and these were extremely well-known scholars, and it offended me to hear these things said about them.
He received his doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1955 and his dissertation was published (in 1959) under the title Christianisme et culture philosophique au cinquième siècle: la querelle de l'âme humaine en Occident.
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