Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC, will ordain Paul Carlson and James Pankiewicz to the transitional diaconate next Sunday, May 17, at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria.

The ordination will take place during the regular 10:30 a.m. liturgy at the cathedral. A light reception of cookies and coffee, hosted by seminarians of the Diocese of Peoria, will follow at the new Spalding Pastoral Center, 419 N.E. Madison Ave.

While priests and deacons have been ordained at the same Mass for a number of years, the decision to have separate celebrations this year was made for practical and pastoral reasons, according to Msgr. Stanley Deptula, director of the diocesan Office of Divine Worship.

“I think it accomplishes a couple of goals,” he told The Catholic Post. “If you’ve been to the combined rituals, you know it becomes a fairly gangly celebration of different laying on of hands, different prayers of consecration. It never flowed ritually very well.”

Msgr. Deptula explained that it also made for a long and very complicated ceremony.

“By separating them, I think it gives each their own dignity,” he said.

A student at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, Carlson, 27, is the son of Dennis and Jill Carlson of Rock Island. His home parish is St. Pius X in Rock Island.

Pankiewicz, 28, is the son of Thomas and Catherine Pankiewicz of Joseph, Mo. He claims St. Peter’s Parish in Peoria as his home parish.

Msgr. Deptula added that it is appropriate that the ritual takes place at a regular Sunday liturgy.

“It brings that celebration of the ordination of deacons into the regular fabric of our liturgy as a celebration of the people of the cathedral parish and the people of our diocese,” he said.