By Gretchen Keiser

“Deacons must be liberated from calculated plans, systems and patterns that promise them security and definite solutions to life’s problems so that they might allow the Holy Spirit to move them where he will, to move them into uncharted courses for our unpredictable God, who is predictable only in his call to lead us from any place and situation where we may have comfortably settled.”

Bishop Howard Hubbard
Albany, N.Y.

Deacon John Cicala works out of a spartan office on the third floor of the Catholic Center in downtown Atlanta.

A volunteer at the Metropolitan Tribunal -- the department which decides upon marriage annulment cases -- he can be seen three days a week bent over a sheaf of papers, a studious figure engrossed in what he reads. White-haired and courteous, Cicala projects an aura of deliberation as he speaks, a sense that he has been interviewed before and knows how to be gracious and yet speak with care.

Indeed, it turns out that this unobtrusive post is far in many ways from where John Cicala has been in the past. Far, yet there is a thread of continuity which he believes is providential.

In the past he would have been robed and seated on the bench as a judge of Connecticut’s Circuit Court and later the state’s Superior Court.

Despite Cicala’s quiet manner, the chief judge of the Circuit Court perceived something else and assigned him to handle cases primarily having to do with organized crime.

“The chief judge seemed to think I had some talent, so to speak, for handling criminal matters and particularly matters involving organized crime -- dealing with it in an expedient manner,” Cicala said. “Consequently he assigned me to various circuits in the state where the need was prevalent.”

Loan sharking, illegal gambling, policy playing, drugs were the crimes that came up regularly in Bridgeport, Hartford and Waterbury where Judge Cicala sat on the bench.

Sometimes there were crimes of violence, but murder cases, after a preliminary hearing in his court, were handed over to a higher court.

Cicala, pressed about the reputation he had serving in this area for 10 years, says with a wry smile, “the hanging judge.” But, he says, “Once lawyers got to know me, they trusted me.” Often, they sought trial by judge, rather than by jury, he said, which he believes showed their regard for his knowledge of the law and fairness.

A native of West Haven, Conn., he rose to the bench after serving as corporation counsel for the city of West Haven and, prior to that, practicing law privately. In Connecticut, judges are appointed for life, rather than elected, so his appointment in the late 1950s normally would have meant many years as a judge.

Instead, severe health problems and a series of heart attacks forced him to seek early retirement.

At the same time, apparently because of his handling of organized crime cases, he and his family were threatened and harassed. “There were periods of time when the Connecticut State Police were on our property for weeks at a time. They would follow me to the courthouse and back,” he recalled. The threats continued even into his retirement which took place in 1968.

It’s clear that Cicala, who graduated from Yale University and the University of Connecticut Law School, would have preferred to stay on the bench longer and he admits he struggled severely with the limitations his health placed upon him and fought early retirement.

Yet, in retirement, a seed of devotion to the Church, which had been in the background during his years as a judge, began to grow.

His wife, Terry, pointed out an article in the Miami archdiocese newspaper about study for the permanent diaconate. Coming from a “close and very church oriented family,” Cicala went to daily Mass and said, “somewhere way back, I may have had thoughts of becoming a priest.” With the time now available, and the encouragement of his wife and pastor, “it didn’t take too much nudging for me to go into the diaconate.”

Miami’s intensive three-year program, which included spending one weekend a month at the regional seminary and one night a week studying Scripture, had an unusual dimension for his class of 11. The program included study over three years in canon law, the law of the Church, taught by the head of the Miami Metropolitan Tribunal. In addition, Cicala took a 20-hour course, studying the grounds for annulments and helping people in the preliminary stage of seeking an annulment.

While all this preparation took place in Miami, it was Atlanta who reaped the benefit. At the end of study and prior to ordination, Cicala and his wife moved to Atlanta to be near their son and within a short time Cicala was ordained to the diaconate of his home parish of St. Oliver Plunkett in Snellville and began working both for the parish and Metropolitan Tribunal.

Atlanta is not unique in having a retired civil judge now serving as a diocesan marriage tribunal judge, but it is still a relatively new phenomenon nationally, said Father Edward Dillon, who is head of Atlanta’s provincial appeals court. The archdiocese is benefiting not only from Cicala’s being a deacon, which enables him to serve as a single judge deciding annulment cases, but also from his legal training and judicial experience.

“We got the benefit of the training in Miami. We are also getting the benefit of his training and experience on the bench,” Father Dillon said.

In addition, Father Dillon noted, since Cicala is retired he can work at the Tribunal virtually on a full-time basis, whereas the majority of permanent deacons still have full-time jobs and are able to work on a more limited basis.

“He is a very conscientious worker, very meticulous,” said Father Dillon. “He has been instrumental really in helping us get caught up on our caseload. He has been a godsend in that respect.”

Cicala said that the most useful aspect of his training in civil law concerned evidence, “the most important subject that one takes in law school...although I didn’t realize it while I was in law school.” Weighing evidence in the courtroom and determining if there is sufficient evidence to reach a particular verdict has proved valuable in weighing the testimony of witnesses in annulment cases and determining if the testimony is adequate to support the grounds for annulment, he said.

“In civil law, what we do is actually find fault on the part of one party or another. The finger is pointed at someone,” he said. “Whereas in canon law our objective is not to find fault, our objective is to determine that a particular marriage is null and void...On the other hand, the law of evidence is pretty much the same.”

A major difference is that Cicala is no longer hearing the testimony of witnesses in a court, but reading the written testimony submitted in annulment cases. “Being in an open court room, I think I acquired a knack for determining the veracity and truthfulness of witnesses,” Cicala said. “Even though I don’t actually see the people here, I think I get a feel for when people are telling the truth and when they are telling the truth and perhaps exaggerating it or coloring it a little bit.” But “probably more important than that,” he acknowledged, “and I say this as sincerely as I can, I have been guided almost throughout my life by the Holy Spirit and/or my guardian angel.”

“Certainly that is equally true of my work here,” he said.

In addition to serving as a judge of archdiocesan annulment cases, Cicala along with Father Dillon, sits in appellate court on annulment cases from Savannah, Charleston, S.C., Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C. All annulment cases are automatically appealed and reviewed.

At St. Oliver Plunkett parish, he also coordinates the work of those who serve at liturgies, preaches at Sunday Mass regularly and conducts the instruction class for those joining the church.

He sees the role of a deacon as being primarily to assist the priests and to take up some of the workload falling on them because of the decline in priestly vocations. While his diaconate ordination permits him to serve as a sole diocesan judge, it is less his training as a deacon than his “career, my training, my life experience,” which is benefiting the Tribunal, said.

It strikes Father Dillon as very appropriate for a permanent deacon to “take the skills acquired in other ways and apply them in the service of the Church in a ministerial way.”

John Cicala also is convinced that his second profession has the mark of God upon it, despite the struggle he had 17 years ago with early retirement.

“The fact of the matter is, God made it possible for me to achieve what I wanted to achieve and having done so, He made it possible for me to achieve what He apparently wanted me to achieve,” Cicala said. “That is a two-fold blessing. I am just as happy now as I was at my first chosen profession.”