This item crackled over the wire last week while I was on vacation, but it deserves a resounding cheer from The Bench:

Training to become a Catholic deacon took William Hisker from theology classes at St. Vincent College and into hospitals, nursing homes and a prison.

“I found it very fulfilling,” Hisker said. “I found many of the prisoners were very open.”

Hisker, 61, of Greensburg, and and Daniel Frescura, 59, of Penn Township, will be ordained Monday as the first two permanent deacons in the Diocese of Greensburg.

Permanent deacons are ministers of the church, said Jerry Zufelt, spokesman for the diocese, and they differ from transitional deacons, who are young men studying to become priests. Like priests, permanent deacons must be men, but a vow of celibacy is not necessary, and they must be older than 35. Permanent deacons can perform many of the same functions as priests, but they cannot conduct the Eucharist or celebrate Mass.

“We’re one of the last three dioceses in the U.S. not to have them,” said Zufelt, explaining that the position of a permanent deacon is common in most dioceses, with some 13,000 in the nation.

The Pittsburgh diocese has 33 active permanent deacons, said Christine Radcliffe, a clergy department secretary.

Dioceses across the country are facing a shortage of priests — a fact that contributed to the closing of several Greensburg-area parishes last year. However, Zufelt said, deacons are not a substitute for priests.

“They are not mini-priests,” Zufelt said. “We need ordained priests in order to consecrate the Eucharist.”

Greensburg Bishop Lawrence Brandt introduced the permanent deacon program in 2005, and Hisker and Frescura have been training for it since.

Both men already had master’s degrees from St. Vincent, Frescura’s in theology and Hisker’s in divinity, but training to become deacons meant acquiring more than 40 additional credits.

“It was a lot of work,” said Frescura, who retired as an English and German teacher at Penn-Trafford HIgh School last year.

Frescura, who converted to Catholicism as a young adult, said he expects to work with people as a deacon.

“I really want to help people bridge the gap from their marketplace life to their spiritual life,” Frescura said. “I’m a plain, simple, blue-jeans guy, not flashy. I want to show people you don’t have to be anything special to want to serve God.”

Ad multos annos, brothers!

Readers can find more at the link. Meantime, I’ll try to post some pictures and more information about the ordination soon.