Permanent Deacon

Deacon Sutter is married to Kim, has four children and four grandchildren. He lives in Schuylkill Haven and is from St. Patrick Church in Pottsville. Deacon Sutter was ordained September 14, 2024.

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"I felt called to be a deacon after I retired from teaching special education in 2014 and began reading Catholic books that I had wanted to read but hadn’t had the time. I discussed becoming a deacon with my pastor who told me that there was no deacon class starting at the time. In 2017, there was an information night about a new deacon class, but the announcement about it was never put in our bulletin, so I didn’t attend it. Later, the deacon at St. John the Baptist Church in Pottsville told me that he was disappointed that my name was not on the list for the new class. I told him that I didn’t know anything about the information meeting. He called the diaconate office and was able to get me an application. I was accepted into the program, and after a couple months of formation meetings I mentioned to another man in the program that I thought I must be the oldest man in the class. He said that when he went to the information session, they were told that no one over the age of 60 was being considered. I was 62 at the time, and if I had gone to that first information night I never would have applied. It just seemed as though it was meant to be."