Newsman Deacon features Novelist Deacon

It’s hard not to smile when you read Deacon Greg and see his excitement upon discovering other Deacons in the writing/mass communication profession. Here he gives a heads up on Deacon Ron Hansen, author of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which is coming soon to a theatre near you, and also of the riveting Mariette in Ecstasy:

Deacon Hansen cited the influence of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola on his storytelling. “One of the exercises is you are who you follow – Christ or the evil one?” he said.

Born into a Catholic family in Nebraska, Deacon Hansen attended Catholic grade school, a Jesuit-run high school and graduated from Jesuit-run Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. His twin brother was a Jesuit and a sister was a Dominican nun.

His mother and father were converts to Catholicism. His father’s father had been Mormon, and his mother became a Catholic while living in an orphanage run by Dominican nuns.

While working on his 1991 novel, Mariette in Ecstasy, about the phenomenon of stigmata, Deacon Hansen returned to school for a mid-career refresher in the faith. In 1995 he graduated from the University of Santa Clara, also a Jesuit school, with a master’s degree of arts in pastoral ministry with an emphasis on spirituality.

He later finished the first year of a three-year master’s of divinity program at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. He left to enroll in the diaconate program of the San Jose Diocese and was ordained three years later.

He assists at Masses, serves on the diocesan formation of clergy committee and is assigned to campus ministry at the University of Santa Clara.

Coolio! Cool books, too!