Known to most people simply as “Deacon Jerry” (or to his friends affectionately as “Arch-Deacon”), Jerry Klement is the longest serving deacon in the Diocese of Austin. Just how his contributions came about makes fascinating history.

As a 14-year-old farm boy from Muenster, Texas, Jerry first answered the call to ministry by going to seminary in San Antonio. Homesickness led him to return to the farm. However, the inner call to service “always gnawed at me,” he said.

After completing an agriculture degree at Texas A&M and a master’s degree in Adult Education at the University of Maryland, Jerry and his wife, Carole, moved to Kentucky for work. There, at age 32, Jerry made a Cursillo retreat.

“[It] changed my life. I met the person of Jesus Christ. It set my heart on fire,” he said. He also encountered male companionship and love in a way he had never experienced before. Jerry discovered “the call [to ministry] was still there.”

After moving back to Maryland, he stayed active in Cursillo and eventually became its director in the Washington, D.C., area. At the same time, he studied for the diaconate in the Diocese of Baltimore, where his formation occurred in small groups, not classes or formal curricula. He was ordained in December 1978.

Settling in Temple

The Department of Agriculture transferred Deacon Jerry to its state office in Temple in early 1979. He met with Bishop Vincent Harris, who accepted him as a deacon, among the first in the Diocese of Austin, and assigned him to St. Luke Parish in Temple. Because there were so few deacons in the diocese at the time (and were all men ordained elsewhere who had moved into the diocese), most priests were unfamiliar with what deacons could do or how to deploy them. Monsignor Ed Jordan, the pastor of St. Luke at the time, told Deacon Jerry he didn’t know what a deacon was, but they worked it out together, Deacon Jerry said.

It did not take long for him to start building the diaconal program in the Diocese of Austin. In 1980 under the direction of Father Charles Michalka, Deacon Jerry and four deacons formed a Scripture study for men interested in diaconate. Enthusiasm ran high. The first formation class started in 1981, and those men were ordained in 1984. Deacon Jerry later became assistant director under Father Tom Frank, who succeeded Father Michalka.

In 1994, he retired from the Department of Agriculture after 37 years of service. Soon thereafter Bishop John McCarthy appointed him to be director of the diaconal formation program, a position he held until 2008. Between 1984 and 2008, more than 200 men were ordained to the diaconate in the Austin Diocese.

Over the years, Deacon Jerry has been involved in Christ Renews His Parish, Marriage Encounter and ACTS retreats. These programs are based on the Cursillo model of peer witnessing on a retreat weekend followed by small group continuation. Jerry’s ministry is a testament to the power of this model to change lives toward a Christ-centered orientation.

Evangelization on many levels

Diaconate formation and retreat ministry are not all Deacon Jerry has done to evangelize. After getting sober from alcohol in 1996, he found that many men in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) were hungry for spiritual guidance during recovery. “AA is part of my mission field,” he said. In fact, he evolved a special form of “field ministry” — golfing with men. Somehow, it was easier for many of them to open up about their struggles while playing the links.

“It’s amazing what took place out there,” he said. Still sober, Deacon Jerry received his 30-year chip earlier this year.

Another form of evangelization — leading pilgrimages — has been a joint effort for Deacon Jerry and Carole. They made their first trip to the Holy Land in 1996 and have made a total of 13 such trips, many of them with Father Brian Eilers, pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Bryan, as chaplain. His last Holy Land pilgrimage was in December 2025 and included four of his grandchildren.

The highlight of these trips is visiting “the places we know where Jesus was, where it all began,” he said. He described the sheer joy of watching fellow sojourners experience the authenticity of holy sites like Bethlehem (Nativity), Mount Tabor (Transfiguration), the Sea of Galilee, the Mount of the Beatitudes, Via Dolorosa (Way of the Cross), Calvary (Crucifixion) and the Holy Sepulchre (Resurrection).

“We were able to provide the leadership to enable others to have that mountain-top experience,” he said.

Besides the Holy Land, Deacon Jerry and Carole have led 10 other pilgrimages to Rome, Greece, Fatima, Lourdes and Mexico City (for Our Lady of Guadalupe). Witnessing the faith of the people in those sacred places, and the faith of the pilgrims drawn to those sites, has been overwhelming. The privilege of leading these pilgrimages has brought deep satisfaction for the couple, he said.

Still walking the walk

Now age 89, Deacon Jerry is “mostly” retired from active ministry. Occasionally, he still serves on the altar even though his knees do not quite work like they used to. However, he still has a twinkle in his eye and a restlessness to spread the Gospel message. Knowing the experience of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and how it changed his life is something he still wants to share with others.

Almost all of his 48 years of ordained ministry has been spent in the Diocese of Austin. At its essence, these five decades of diaconal service have been a multi-faceted, never-ending evangelization campaign. Sharing Christ’s light has been Deacon Jerry’s greatest contribution, illuminating life’s greatest, intangible treasure — the way of Jesus Christ.