HAMMONDSPORT, NY — Thomas Jack’s first memories of attending church were not all that positive. During the Mass while congregants greeted each other with exchanges of “peace!” and smiles, a recognizable woman came up to his mother.

“They were sworn enemies and they ended up getting into a fistfight in the middle of Mass,” he recalled.   

Despite that early experience, Jack grew up to be a devout Roman Catholic and eventually a deacon, though an unconventional one. With flowing white hair and a matching beard, the 46-year-old performs in a metal band and is a passionate vegan activist. 

Jack worked as a production manager for a contractor at the Javits Center in New York City before COVID-19 prevented any large events from taking place. The pandemic would also prevent him from touring with the alternative metal band “Today is the Day,” which he joined in January 2020 to play bass and keys. Their song lyrics have themes of depression, warfare, altered consciousness and mental disorders.

After being furloughed from his job, Jack said he continues to stay busy by volunteering in Rochester, N.Y. Twice a week, he drives nearly two hours each way to volunteer at The Catholic Family Center to help people cope with the effects of the ongoing pandemic. 

“I’m answering the phones, providing security deposits in assistance with back rent for people because of the housing crisis in Rochester,” he said. The Catholic Family Center is one of many non-profits responding to the crisis that received a grant from New York state. “People are being evicted. It’s bad for tenants and property owners, alike. I’m talking to about 70 to 100 people a day.” 

Jack is used to listening to people’s stories. When he’s not volunteering, Jack fulfills his duties as a deacon. In the hierarchy of the Catholic church, there is the pope, cardinals, bishops, priests and deacons. While deacons are at the bottom of the food chain, they are increasingly serving an important role in parishes across the United States during a priest shortage. Deacons can baptize, perform funerals, preach in churches and distribute communion. 

A variety of Christian churches, like Eastern Orthodox and Anglican churches, ordain deacons. During Mass, deacons assist priests. Since 1967, the number of permanent Catholic deacons in the U.S. church has steadily grown to more than 18,000, regularly providing support to parishes during a period of decline in the number of ordained priests. 

Jack is a deacon during a politically polarized time in our country, when religion and policy don’t always neatly line up. That’s the challenge he faces at St. John Vianney Parish in New York’s Steuben County. 

He’s passionate about prison chaplaincy and prison reform. After being ordained a deacon in 2016, part of his assignment was prison chaplaincy and to serve as the dioceasan liaison for Catholic chaplains. He also advocates for the removal of the death penalty in the U.S. prison system.

“There’s been a 17-year moratorium, we haven’t executed anyone since 2003 on the federal level but this administration is ramping it up,” Jack said. “The pace with which we are executing people now is unprecedented in our history.”

The Trump administration has executed 10 people this year, three alone since Election Day. 

As a Catholic with a passion for the sanctity of human life, Jack said executing prisoners is considered an evil act. 

“I preached about this [in church recently] and boy was there some backlash … but it’s not politics, it’s just statistics,” he said. “I got confronted by lots of Trump supporters who were worried and upset because [Trump] is anti-abortion. I said, ‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you’re pro-life. You can’t say that you are anti-abortion, but be all for federal executions. It’s absolute madness.” 

The teaching of the Catholic church has put them against both Democrats and Republicans. The church is anti-abortion in line with many Republicans but also against the death penalty, a position many Democrats agree with. 

Jack grew up in Hudson County, N.J. and was raised by a single mom. He has three sisters, two of them half-siblings. They didn’t attend church every week but he was a baptized Catholic. When he wasn’t in school, he was working.

“My mother put me to work when I was 10 years old in Newark on summer break from school. She worked for a real estate developer in Newark that was buying all the old mansions that were burnt out from the riots in the ‘60s and ‘70s,” he said. “I would go in and help out wherever I can: painting, demolishing stuff. I basically worked full time as a kid. That’s why I always liked school, it's because I hated working.”  

He attended Kearney High School, where he met his future wife, Filomena. They married in 2000.

“I was a junior and she was a senior,” he said. “She had purple hair and she always wore army clothes. She was always listening to weird music so we started hanging out. And that was it.”

Jack’s faith and education crossed paths in 2003 when he began studying religion at Montclair State University. 

“I don’t know how I ended up in the religious studies program, but it just seemed interesting to me so I became a religious studies major and sort of comparative religions,” he said. 

Jack received his bachelor’s degree in religious studies, and that’s when his spiritual journey to becoming a Catholic deacon began. In between, he would pursue his masters in religious education with a spirituality concentration at Fordham University in New York. In 2011, he attended St. Bernard’s School of Philosophy and Ministry in Rochester and was ordained a deacon. At Saint Bernard’s, he would also get a masters degree in pastoral studies. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at Northeastern Seminary. 

“I’ve been doing trade shows and being in union labor management for 25 years now, I’d like to do something that has a more positive impact on people,” Jack said of his religious calling to help others. “I’m interested in prison chaplaincy and working for a nonprofit.” 

Jack’s passion for others doesn’t stop with people. Jack also has a great passion for animals. He and his wife are also vegan activists.

“For us, it’s about violence. I think that there is enough violence in the world already,” he said. “We don’t need to have it on our plates.” 

For Jack, veganism not only transcends his earthly values but also aligns with his morality as a devout Catholic. 

“It’s part of my consistent ethic so that’s why I don’t believe in killing of any sort,” he said. “I believe in the sanctity of life.” 

Natalie Lowin is a student at The King’s College in New York City majoring in Journalism, Culture and the Arts. She has been a contributor to the Empire State Tribune, the independent student newspaper at King’s, and scheduled to graduate in May 2022.