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Sept. 5, 2019
Christina Gray
Five years after his own ordination into the permanent diaconate, Deacon Fuad “Fred” Totah has begun the role of director of diaconate formation for the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
Deacon Totah, a deacon at St. Timothy Parish in San Mateo, began his role July 1, succeeding Dominican Father Michael Sweeney.
On Sept. 14, Deacon Totah will welcome the 22 men in the archdiocese's two diaconate formation classes to the new academic year. Eleven men will be ordained in 2020 and the others when their five-year journey is complete in 2022.
“While the men are discerning whether they want to be in the diaconate, I will be discerning whether they have the disposition,” he said.
The word deacon comes from the Greek word, “diakonos,” meaning “one who serves,” Deacon Totah said.
He said a disposition of “humility and putting others first,” is an essential quality of a good deacon -- a willingness to be the “unseen one, the one in the background,” providing a service role to pastor and parish.
Deacon Totah said a desire for status is incompatible with being a deacon. He said Jesus, who came “to serve, not to be served,” was “the first deacon.”
There are more than 100 permanent deacons in the archdiocese, the large majority serving in parishes. Two serve in Central America.
For many years, deacons “ascended” from one office to another, culminating in ordination to the priesthood. The Second Vatican Council restored the diaconate as a permanent order of ministry, according to the U.S. bishops’ website.
Bishops, priests and deacons are all ministers of the Word, sacrament and charity, but are called to different functions. Deacons can proclaim the Gospel, preach, and teach in the name of the church. They can baptize, lead the faithful in prayer, witness marriages and conduct funeral services. Deacons are also leaders in identifying the needs of others and marshaling church resources to meet those needs, often in parish work.
A deacon cannot consecrate, hear confessions or anoint the sick.
Born in Jerusalem and raised in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Deacon Totah moved to San Francisco in his teens, married and raised a daughter while working full-time at a law firm in San Mateo. He said his decision to enter the diaconate in his 50s was sparked 27 years earlier by the deacon who baptized his infant daughter at St. Augustine Parish in South San Francisco.
At the baptism, Deacon Bob Bertolani wore a priest’s Roman collar. The new parents were wide-eyed when they heard the man say he was going home to spend time with his wife and children.
Deacon Totah learned about the permanent diaconate from “Deacon Bob,” with whom he shared a decades-long friendship until his death in 2014. He was ordained a deacon the same year.
“Deacon Bob Bertolani, may he rest in peace, he is the one that planted that seed in me,” said Totah, who tears up at the memory of his mentor.
He said when he was an acolyte at St. Timothy Parish, where he still serves as deacon, his pastor asked him to go to the sacristy to find an alb to wear on the altar. The name stitched into the first one he saw: Deacon Bob Bertolani.
The pastor gave it to him.
Some weeks before Deacon Totah’s ordination, Mike Ghiorso, the director of the permanent diaconate, brought him some stoles to choose from, telling him they had belonged to a deacon who couldn’t use them anymore.
“I picked the white one,” said Deacon Totah, who found out the deacon was Deacon Bertolani.
After looking at photos from his daughter’s baptism, he realized it was the same stole that the deacon wore that day.
“I still wear it every time I do a baptism,” he said.