A First for Baltimore: Father & Son Permanent Deacons

From The Catholic Review: 

“My calling,” Scott Rose insists, “is a synthesis of my family.” “The only explanation,” his father counters, “is the Holy Spirit.” To an observer, both appear right. Al Rose was ordained a permanent deacon for the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1989. His son, Scott, will undergo the same rite in Baltimore at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary May 21. While the clergy rolls in the archdiocese include other father-son combinations, the Roses are the first to be ordained permanent deacons here. As he said, Scott Rose is indeed the middle branch on a family tree that exemplified mercy well before Pope Francis called for a year to do so. When his son, Austin, isn’t advancing his undergraduate work at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., he’s on the southern border of the U.S., assisting immigrants. His daughter, Aubrey, is a mitigation specialist with the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, a non-profit which supplies legal assistance to those facing the death penalty. Both began flexing their Catholic social justice muscles while students at St. John’s Catholic Prep in Buckeystown – Austin commuting to Baltimore to volunteer at the Esperanza Center, and Aubrey organizing an assembly on the death penalty that included Kirk Bloodsworth. She had a direct connection to the man who is the Maryland face of the wrongly convicted. Before his death sentence had been overturned by DNA evidence, Bloodsworth had been ministered to behind bars by her grandfather, Deacon Al Rose. A parishioner of St. Katharine Drexel in Frederick, Scott Rose is the CEO and general counsel of Frederick-based Way Station Inc., a mental health non-profit subsidiary of Sheppard Pratt. His children reflect his service to the downtrodden, and his path to the diaconate was obviously inspired by his father. Deacon Al Rose taught English literature at the U.S. Naval Academy and then Frostburg State University, where he began dabbling in campus ministry. In rapid order, he exited academia, moved with his wife, Abbie, to Baltimore, and began to work in prison and hospice ministry.

God love ’em both. Read it all.