On August 24th, 2024, Deacon Dr. Randy Perkins, dean of students at Trinity High School for junior and senior students, was ordained as a deacon within the Archdiocese of Louisville. Orchestrated by Archbishop Shelton at St. Peter the Apostle Church, this ordination serves as a major milestone in Perkins’s life, allowing him to immerse himself deeper in his faith and the relationships within his life. This journey, Perkins said, would have not been made possible if it wasn’t for the support of his wife, Colleen Perkins, Trinity Chaplain Fr. Dave Zettel ‘58, and the support of the Trinity administration, faculty, and students. Perkins stated, “I never would have made it through five years of formation had I not been here…there was so much support here and so much encouragement and so much excitement about it that it kind of pushed me along through [the process].”
The process to becoming a deacon as described by Perkins is a five-year commitment that “starts off with a really lengthy application process.” This involves background checks on an individual’s education, work experience, social experience, and church experience. Following the application process, the applicant will undergo a “two-day psychological evaluation, which is very in depth and lots of testing and questions and interviews…then you are either accepted or rejected.” Over the course of a five-year formation, the applicant will spend “one weekend every month, Friday to Sunday, together with your cohort.” The first year is run by the Archdiocese of Louisville, which Perkins describes to be a “lot of internal study and growth.” During this time the applicant will go through Myers-Briggs testing and learn a large amount of information “about the local church, about how the Archdiocese is run and about what it’s like to be a deacon.” One purpose for this is to figure out if the role of a deacon is right for that applicant.
“After the first year, if you are accepted into the full process, then you go into a St. Meinrad Seminary program. It’s a four-year academic program. So then for that, for the last four years, we’ve spent doing academic work through St. Meinrad on those weekends, Friday through Sunday. It was interspersed with a lot of Archdiocese stuff too, and, you know, local programs, an annual retreat. Every year we spent a weekend together at St. Meinrad for a full weekend on retreat. We did chaplaincy through University of Louisville Hospital… like nursing homes, retirement home kind of rotations… ministerial pastoral stuff. Yeah, but it was primarily academic.”
During this five-year commitment, Perkins was abetted by his wife, Colleen Perkins and Trinity Chaplain Fr. Dave Zettel ‘58. The “number one” person whom Perkins looked up to was his “wife, Colleen, because when you’re going through deacon formation, your spouse has to go through everything just like you do. So, she did the weekends every month. She was part of the deacon cohort with all our spouses, and she had to sign off on it. She had to give her blessing for it to ever even happy…and she was always my number one support…Number two would be Fr. Dave, because he has been my spiritual mentor here at Trinity since I’ve been at Trinity” and is “someone I try to follow in his footsteps in my own little way.”
Perkins later went on to speak about the important role that Trinity High School played in his formation to become a deacon. “I never would have made it through five years of formation had I not been here…there was so much support here and so much encouragement and so much excitement about it that it kind of pushed me along through” the process.
Prior to Perkins ordination, he primarily performed service at the Luther Lockett Correctional Complex, usually going there on Monday nights to celebrate mass if a priest was available, or to conduct a communion service if a priest was not. Perkins has taken the role of leading some of those events, followed by a faith sharing after service which “is real meaningful for me, and hopefully for the men who attend it,” Perkins said. Perkins also does service work through his local parish, Epiphany, and through “Trinity and families here as needed as well.”
What about post-ordination? In addition to some of the service he already does, “as part of being a deacon, I’ll do weddings, funerals, baptisms, a lot of hospital visitations, and a lot of home visits to homebound people…primarily directed from the parish I’m assigned to.”
Trinity High School administration, faculty, students, and families are very supportive and excited to see Perkins taking on this new role within the Archdiocese of Louisville and can’t wait to see how he impacts our community and the school.
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