What does a deacon do when he’s not at church? More than you may think.

Check out this piece, from a paper in greater St. Louis, describing the life of police chaplains — including one who is a Catholic deacon:

Florissant Police Sgt. Richard Miller says he knows police chaplains’ prayers are answered.

While waiting outside an operating room to have cancer surgery a few years ago at St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, he heard some nurses saying something about a priest also awaiting surgery.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but Father Dempsey (then a city police chaplain) was the next one behind me to go into the OR,” Miller said last week. “There was a lot of powerful praying going on in that room.”

Dempsey probably didn’t know that Miller was ahead of him, but his prayers may have spilled over.

“I know it worked because it (surgery) came out well for me,” Miller said, with a smile.

Miller and other police and firefighters in North County can only speculate if their chaplains have an inside track to the almighty.

But they’re certain that they help with more earthly matters, providing counsel to emergency responders and even victims of crime and their families.

Chaplains working with emergency responders are volunteers. They can be ministers, priests, pastors, deacons and rabbis.

Sometimes, they’re asked to volunteer; sometimes they have an interest in working with police.

“I enjoy dealing with people,” said the Rev. Willie McPhearson, 66, of Faith Baptist Church, a chaplain for the Berkeley Police Department since 1992.

Chaplains’ roles vary.

“It depends upon the department,” said the Rev. Robert Chisenhall, 72. The retired Baptist minister coordinates the chaplains program at the St. Louis County Police Department and works with the O’Fallon Police Department in St. Charles County.

The St. Louis County program, with more than 20 volunteer chaplains, is largely “in-house” and deals with the needs of department personnel and not the public, he said.

Chisenhall, who has worked as a chaplain with St. Louis and St. Louis County police for 35 years, said he stresses certain points to new chaplains.

They have to be available when needed, they have to be visible and get to know officers, and they have to be credible representatives of God, he said.

The time they dedicate to the ministry often dictates whether officers accept and trust them, Chisenhall said.

It’s the officer’s prerogative on whether he wants to talk to a chaplain.

“You’ve got to spend the time at roll-calls or be around the station, and build relationships,” Chisenhall said. “Police officers have a tendency to hold people at arm’s length until they get to know them.”

Some chaplains ride in patrol cars with officers. Most try to be around the station or precinct offices to be seen and available.

“What we simply want to be able to do is let them know, No. 1, that the community cares, and, No. 2, that God cares,” said Deacon Robert Klostermann.

Klostermann, 67, is a Roman Catholic deacon who serves as a lead chaplain for the Florissant Police Department. He is among six chaplains who work with the city’s officers, dispatchers and other law enforcement employees.

“I’m there to not so much talk as to listen,” Klostermann said. “To listen to them, to let them know that whatever they say is 100 percent confidential, to assure them, to pray with them when they are going on a call when they don’t know what they may meet.”

Read the rest of the article for more. And please keep these men, and all chaplains, in your prayers. God knows, they need all the help they can get.

Photo: Deacon Robert Klosterman, by David Kennedy