Deacons come from all walks of life, but here’s a new deacon with a particularly unusual resume, from Canada:

For almost 40 years, Jean-Paul Tremblay investigated crime, first as a supervisor with the Sûreté du Québec in Low, Hull and Montreal, and then under contract at the former federal solicitor general’s department until he retired in 2004.

During that time, Mr. Tremblay, 66, believed his police career and his work with the Roman Catholic Church involved helping people. He worked in his parish, counselling couples on weekends, visiting the sick and elderly, and preparing children for receiving the sacraments.

Last weekend, Mr. Tremblay was ordained as Gatineau’s first permanent deacon in almost three decades. To some people, this volunteer job, which includes some of the work of a priest, might seem like a complete change, but Mr. Tremblay doesn’t see it that way.

“A police officer is often on the road giving out tickets and preventing people from going too fast, but that is only part of the job. The police help people when they are in trouble.

“Police work is not that different from what I will be doing. When someone breaks into your house, you call the police and trust them to help you. It is not that different with deacons, because we are there to help, too.”

Mr. Tremblay spoke to his parish priest about doing more work for the church after he retired and was advised to contact Archbishop Roger Ebacher.

Permanent deacons are married or single men who perform some of the same functions as priests: they can help administer the eucharist, baptize, marry people and conduct funerals without saying mass. Deacons do not hear confessions or become priests.

Mr. Tremblay will head a parish team that will visit people who are sick, elderly or living alone. He will work in the Notre-Dame de l’Eau Vive parish, on the north side of Gatineau’s Hull sector.

René Laprise, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Gatineau, said Mr. Tremblay is the first permanent deacon the church has ordained in the city in 28 years.

Two permanent deacons were ordained in Gatineau in 1980, but the last one died in 2003. There have been no active permanent deacons in the archdiocese since the mid-1980s.

The permanent-deacon program has been on hold in Gatineau since then because archbishops Adolphe Proulx and Ebacher felt that priests and parishioners were able to do the work of the church without any assistance.

But after a period of consultation with diocese officials during the past year, Archbishop Ebacher decided to restore the program in Gatineau.