English professor Ron Hansen ordained as deacon

By Jeremy Herb

Ron Hansen has built up an impressive resume: award-winning author, literary editor, professor.

But Hansen's latest undertaking isn't a typical literary affair -- Hansen has become a deacon in the Catholic Church. He was ordained as a permanent deacon Saturday at the Mission Church in front of over 200 of his friends and family.

As a deacon, Hansen, 59, will preform similar duties as a priest, including baptisms, weddings and funerals. The only thing he cannot do is consecrate the Catholic Eucharist for distribution at Mass and hear confessions.

"It's exciting and inspiring," Hansen said. "You feel like a deer in the headlights. This changes your life in such a dramatic way simply because it reorients you."

Hansen is only the seventh man to be ordained as a deacon in the Diocese of San Jose. Deacons, who, unlike priests, can be married, were re-implemented in the Catholic Church under the second Vatican Council in the 1960s. However, the Diocese of San Jose, which was established in 1981, did not start ordaining deacons until 2003.

To become a deacon, Hansen had to go through a three-year program of spiritual education.

"It came kind of as a natural outgrowth," Hansen said of his decision to become a deacon. "I'd done my master's in spirituality here, and I was doing a number of different ministries here as lector, Eucharistic minister and spiritual director. (Being a deacon) would give me power to do more things like baptize and marry."

Hansen has written eight books, and his ninth is on the way. He was a two-time Pen/Faulkner award finalist for novels "The Assassination of Jesse James" and "Atticus."

So how did such an accomplished writer enter into the religious life?

"There's an old saying: Beware any application that requires new clothes," Hansen said. "And I don't have to have new clothes for this one. It just felt like a natural fit."

"I can't find a difference between praying and imagining -- I think they're kind of uniquely intertwined. Certainly, when people talk about their muse, I think they're really talking about inspiration from the Holy Spirit."

Hansen was born on Dec. 8, 1947, in Omaha, Neb., and was raised by parents who had converted to Catholicism, something Hansen said caused them to be extra devout. Hansen's vocation to religious life is not unique within his family. An older sister of his became a Dominican nun, while his younger brother was a Jesuit for nine years before leaving the priesthood.

Hansen attended a Jesuit high school and went to Creighton University in Omaha, also Jesuit. Hansen served in the military following his graduation in 1970 and then earned his Master of Fine Arts in fiction writing at the University of Iowa in 1974.

Hansen moved to California to teach at Stanford University and then began to take religion classes, as well. He earned his Master of Arts in spirituality from Santa Clara and began a Master of Divinity degree at the University of California, Berkeley.

Hansen is married to Bo Caldwell, who is also a writer. Hansen said that while she is a devout Catholic, she thinks of his new job as "alien," as she is much more introverted than Hansen.

As a deacon, Hansen will work in campus ministry, mainly preaching and assisting with Masses and performing weddings in the Mission Church, said Jack Treacy, S.J., campus ministry director.

But while Hansen is now a clergyman in the Catholic Church, he doesn't plan on proclaiming that in pages of his upcoming novels.

"My novels will not be written by 'The Rev. Ronald Hansen,' " he said. "Being a deacon shouldn't have any effect on the readers if I do the fiction properly."

Rev. Tony Mancuso, director of formation for the Diocese of San Jose, said one of the most important roles of a deacon is to preach, and he expected Hansen would be more than up to the task.

"He certainly has all the words," Mancuso said of the writer.

Contact Jeremy Herb at (408) 554-4546 or jmherb@scu.edu.