After his ordination, Curtiss assigned to parishes in Lakeview, La Grande, and Jordan Valley, Oregon, and served as a hospital chaplain.

[2] Curtiss led a capital campaign that funded a retirement home for priests and repairs to St. Cecilia Cathedral.

[4] During his tenure as the Bishop of Helena, Curtiss chose to reassign a priest who had been accused of pedophilia in 1959, later admitting that he had not properly examined the church's personnel file on the individual concerned.

In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI accepted his resignation and named Bishop George J. Lucas as his successor.

[1] In 2009, Curtiss stated that the bishops had "learned the hard way", but that the church was better now that it had gone through the process of responding to the sexual abuse issues.