“It’s Been a Real Joy”: Popular Baltimore Deacon Retires

From the Catholic Review in Baltimore:

Deacon Charles H. Hiebler spent his college years in seminary – first at St. Charles College Seminary in Catonsville, then at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg. He decided to leave after his first year of theology.

“For me personally, I felt I could do more for people without a Roman collar around my neck,” he said.

Looking back on his career, he thinks he was right – although he did receive Holy Orders to join the diaconate in 1984.

He worked for 20 years for the Boy Scouts of America, spent several years in parish work, and is now retiring after more than a decade assisting an auxiliary bishop – first Bishop W. Francis Malooly, now bishop of Wilmington, Del., and then Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski, vicar of the Seton Vicariate.

Deacon Hiebler’s retirement from the position as assistant pastoral planner to the Seton Vicar was effective July 1. The retirement does not affect his diaconate ministry at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland.

His work for the Seton Vicariate was something he thoroughly enjoyed, but he wants to spend more time with family and travel while in good health, he said.

Members of Immaculate Heart of Mary in Baynesville, Deacon Hiebler, 69, and his wife, Joyce, have three children and seven grandchildren.

When Deacon Hiebler joined the Catholic Center staff in 2002, there were three vicariates, or geographical subdivisions, within the archdiocese: Eastern, Western and Urban. They were reorganized in 2008, becoming the St. John Neumann Vicariate, which includes Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Harford County; and the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Vicariate, which includes, from west to east, Garrett, Allegany, Washington, Frederick, Carroll, Howard and Anne Arundel Counties.

With the transition, Deacon Hiebler, who worked in the Western Vicariate, assumed duties for the Seton Vicariate, tending to parishes from the mountains to the Chesapeake Bay.

“It’s been a real pleasure to work with the many lay people in the parishes these many years,” Deacon Hiebler said. “It’s been a real joy.”

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