Deacon Raymond Ward (left) of Queen of All Saints Basilica Parish, chats with his son, Deacon Raymond E. Ward of St. Jerome Parish. Ward Sr. is a member of the 25th anniversary class of 1976; his son was ordained in 1989. Catholic New World/Sandy Bertog

By Patrick Butler
Special contributor

Four of the Chicago archdiocese’s permanent deacons who will be celebrating their 25th ordination anniversary in May have at least one thing in common:

They like being around when they’re needed most.

“It’s being able to help when people are really hurting,” said Deacon Don Newhall, who besides his quarter-century of service at St. Cajetan Parish also volunteers two days a week in the Pastoral Care Department at St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island.

Newhall said he became a deacon because “It was payback time. Here I was, 45 years old, with a loving woman and seven great children. I wanted to be able to share this loving God with others.”

Like many deacons, Newhall had seriously considered the priesthood, attending Quigley High School for two years in the 1940s before opting for a career in accounting and finance.

That made him a welcome addition to St. Cajetan’s staff, said Newhall, recalling how some priests back then weren’t as accepting of deacons as they are today.

Newhall, who was among 57 in his diaconate class, isn’t surprised only 22 new deacons were ordained last year considering that the training has been lengthened from two-and-a-half to four years.

“You’ve got guys who are married, holding down full-time jobs. And you’re asking them to go through four years. I was able to do two-and-a-half years, but there’s no way I could have done four.”

Deacon Rudy Schoewe of our Lady of Victory Parish, who agrees the longer schooling is probably deterring some men from pursuing ordination as deacons these days, said he entered the program after the death of the youngest of his 11 children.

“I decided that God has blessed me with 10 other healthy children so I ought to give something back,” said the retired insurance adjuster, adding the thing he most enjoys about being a deacon is still “visiting people who don’t often have someone to talk to.”

Of course, Schoewe admits, he “couldn’t have done it” without the support of his wife, Dolores, director of the National Council of Catholic Women’s Chicago Province.

Deacon Ray Ward, a retired electronics executive who has served at Queen of All Saints for 25 years, says one of his biggest joys is still “discovering you had an effect on someone because of what you said or did, or just by being there.”

Ironically, Ward had resisted the urgings of his pastor, the late Father Patrick Hunter, who wanted him to become a deacon a few years earlier.

It was while making a Cursillo, Ward recalled, that “I realized I was a very conditional person. If you asked me to do something, I wanted to know what it was first. I learned sometimes you have to say yes first, then find out what it is you’re being asked to do.” His son Ray, also is a deacon, making them the only father/son deacons in the Chicago Archdiocese.

Like Ward, retired Chicago Bureau of Electricity truck driver Peter Liberti became a deacon at the urging of a priest, Father Leonard Dubi, then one of the associates at his parish, All Saints/St. Anthony in Cicero.

For him, the diaconate turned out to be nothing less than “transforming.”

“Before that, I didn’t even know what a deacon was,” said Liberti, who admits he used to burn the candle at both ends (“I didn’t get married until I was 29”) and believes the program “not only brought me back to church, but probably saved my life.”

Liberti admits some of his friends were at first surprised by the new leaf he’d turned. “It’s miraculous how I was accepted by people who knew me in my younger days,” he said. “Sure, there were a few who said they knew me when, but eventually they came around and agreed that, of course, a person can change.”

And isn’t that what the whole idea of ministry is supposed to be about, he asked.