The diocese is preparing to ordain its first class of permanent deacons.
Come next spring, at least a few Southern Nevada Catholics may be a bit confused about some of the new faces they’ll be seeing around the parish.
The guy who preaches a homily during Mass and then, afterward, gives his wife a peck on the cheek. Or, maybe, the guy who presides at a wedding or baptism and then heads out to his kids’ Little League game.
Relax. You won’t be witnessing the fruits of some supersecret Vatican III. You’ll just be meeting members of the Diocese of Las Vegas’ first class of permanent deacons.
The permanent diaconate isn’t a new, or even little-known, structure within the Catholic Church. Catholics who have moved here from older dioceses probably have met permanent deacons at their former parishes, and the Las Vegas diocese already is home to both permanent deacons ordained elsewhere and seminarians who serve as deacons before being ordained as priests.
But when the Las Vegas diocese’s inaugural class of permanent deacons is ordained on June 3, they’ll augment the diocese’s corps of priests in ways that they could not as laymen…
…The most visible thing parishioners will notice about permanent deacons: Some of them will be married. However, deacons who are unmarried at the time of their ordination must remain unmarried, while married deacons may not remarry if they should become single.
Patrick Cater, one of the diocese’s charter permanent deacon candidates, moved to Las Vegas about six years ago from the Cleveland area where, he notes, “the (permanent) diaconate is thriving.”
In fact, Cater says seeking ordination as a permanent deacon is something “I had always considered … in the back of my mind.”
When he moved here — because of, Cater explains, a better economy here and a desire to escape harsh winters there — Cater didn’t know that the diocese was preparing to create a permanent diaconate. But in 2005, and after, he says, “a lot of soul-searching and a lot of praying,” he applied.
A vocation to the diaconate is just like any other ministerial calling, Cater explains. And, like any other ministerial calling, it can be, at least initially, intimidating.
“I don’t know if ‘scary’ is the right word,” Cater says, but the prospect of being ordained was “overwhelming at the time.”
“I have to think,” he says, that “there was a little Divine Providence at work.”
Read more. And keeps these men — and the people of Las Vegas — in your prayers. Life is about to get very interesting for all of them.
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