The Archdiocese of Louisville’s Diaconal Ministry, formerly the Diaconate Office, has a new leader and some new initiatives.
Dr. DeKarlos Blackmon took the helm of Diaconal Ministry in January, succeeding Deacon Dennis Nash, who had served as director since 2016.
Deacon Nash was “an outstanding director,” said Blackmon, noting he is “someone I respect and have great esteem for. He’s been a great resource and someone to lean on. He’s the epitome of Christ the servant.”
Blackmon, who also serves the archdiocese as vice chancellor for pastoral services, leads Diaconal Ministry with Deacon Mark Preischel, associate director. And Madeline Kincaid supports the office as secretary.
“The church is richer for diaconal ministry. Building up the diaconate community is really important to me,” said Blackmon in a recent interview. “I want to make sure deacons and their families are supported so they can be expressive of the domestic church.”
To that end, the ministry is working on several new initiatives, including:
Fostering community
In addition to what the ministry is already offering, Blackmon said he wants to create more opportunities for deacons and their wives to gather. Currently, the ministry offers an annual assembly, a retreat and a party for deacons’ wives. These and other gatherings are opportunities for deacons to lift each other, he noted.
He aims to focus, in particular, on creating fellowship opportunities within the parish deaneries — where deacons and their families can “walk with and accompany each other.”
Blackmon said he’s also mindful of including widows and widowers in the deacon community. He noted that widows labored alongside their husbands during their ministry and that “they can still enjoy a place at the table” when their husbands are gone.
They “should still be lifted up by the community,” he said.
Project Stephen
A new diaconate class is formed every four years, and some miss the window to join in the formation, noted Blackmon.
Project Stephen will create opportunities for men who feel called to the diaconate to encounter deacon couples and to take part in fellowship with them in that interim period.
Blackmon said the new project aims to help keep their desire to be formed engaged.
Deacon Preischel, who was ordained in 2020, said he was one of those men who missed the chance to enroll in a formation class. He had to wait four years until the next cohort was ready.
Project Stephen “gives guys, and their wives, too, a chance to keep that call in the forefront, keep the flame going as opposed to shutting it down and saying, ‘We’ll come back to it in a few years,’ ” said Deacon Preischel.
Multicultural formation
Deacon Preischel has served as associate director since February of 2023, the same year he retired from UPS after 22 years as a mechanical engineer. He and his wife, Holly, have been members of St. Albert the Great Church, where he serves, for more than two decades.
In addition to Project Stephen, Deacon Preischel said he is thinking of how the archdiocese can best serve immigrants.
In June of 2023, the office started a diaconate formation class for Spanish speakers. There are five couples in that cohort on the path to ordination in 2028, he said.
“I see this as an initiative we need to continue as our archdiocese becomes more multicultural,” he said. “At some point in time, those communities will not only need deacons but have men called to the diaconate. Our formation will need to become a lot more multicultural.”
He envisions formation classes in Vietnamese and French and is thinking of what that might look like and how the Diaconal Ministry would put that into practice, he said.
