{"id":2644,"date":"2008-10-30T00:10:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-30T00:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/four-for-oregon.html"},"modified":"2008-10-30T00:10:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-30T00:10:00","slug":"four-for-oregon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/four-for-oregon.html","title":{"rendered":"Four for Oregon!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pacific Northwest can count four more deacons, and the Catholic Sentinel has the scoop<\/a>: <\/p>\n

<\/a>David Briedwell, a firefighter and paramedic, joined the Catholic Church in 1990. On a Marriage Encounter weekend, he felt grabbed. Before he knew it, he was telling others on the weekend that he was going to become Catholic, joining his wife Sally Marie in her faith.<\/p>\n

He started out as a member of St. James Parish in his home town of McMinnville. Like some new Catholics, he drifted away from practicing his faith for awhile. When he returned, he felt welcomed with open arms. That started something.<\/p>\n

He offered to mow the lawn at Good Shepherd Church in nearby Sheridan. Pretty soon, he was also counting the weekend collection and doing other jobs. When the priest was reassigned and it appeared no other was coming soon, the clergyman handed the church keys to Briedwell. Eventually, he began serving as a lector, eucharistic minister, sacristan and pastoral associate in Sheridan and Grand Ronde. Then he was named pastoral administrator. On Saturday, Briedwell became a deacon of the church, bound to serve the needy, preach the word and lead sacraments.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to have people praying for you to do this,\u201d says the father of two, citing great support from family and friends.<\/p>\n

Briedwell was one of four men ordained as permanent deacons at St. Mary Cathedral. The others are Mike Caldwell, Dennis Desmarais, and Tim Dooley.<\/p>\n

The permanent diaconate was revived by the Second Vatican Council. In the U.S., there were only 500 or 600 deacons in the 1970s. There are more than 17,000 now.<\/p>\n

In Oregon, 64 permanent deacons visit the sick and prisoners and provide food, clothing and other assistance to needy Oregonians. They help prepare young couples for marriage and instruct those hoping to become Catholic.<\/p>\n

The ministry of a deacon is primarily one of service and charity. Deacons are ministers of the word, which means they can proclaim the gospel at Mass, preach and teach in the name of the church. Their sacramental ministry includes baptizing, conducting prayer services, serving as an official church witness to marriage and conducting funerals and wake services.<\/p>\n

Archbishop John Vlazny thanked the men and their wives for their willingness to play a role as \u201cservant ministers\u201d in the church\u2019s evangelizing mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst and foremost we ourselves must be men of prayer, integrity, generosity and compassion,\u201d Archbishop Vlazny told the new deacons, offering that as an antidote to \u201cbland Christianity\u201d and \u201cdarkened spirits\u201d in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe extent of the spirituality and generosity of deacons and their wives is reflected over and over again in the way they live their lives together with their families and through their service to the people of God, especially the poor and needy,\u201d the archbishop said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s more at the link. Welcome, brothers — and congratulations! Ad multos annos!<\/i><\/p>\n

Photo: by Kim Nguyen<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pacific Northwest can count four more deacons, and the Catholic Sentinel has the scoop: David Briedwell, a firefighter and paramedic, joined the Catholic Church in 1990. On a Marriage Encounter weekend, he felt grabbed. Before he knew it, he was telling others on the weekend that he was going to become Catholic, joining his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deacons"],"yoast_head":"\nFour for Oregon! - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/four-for-oregon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Four for Oregon! - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Pacific Northwest can count four more deacons, and the Catholic Sentinel has the scoop: David Briedwell, a firefighter and paramedic, joined the Catholic Church in 1990. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}