Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, MTS ’00, is an internationally renowned Catholic speaker and the author of six books. He credits the University of Dallas with laying the foundation for his passion in ministry.

Burke-Sivers emigrated to the U.S. from Barbados at the age of three and grew up in New Jersey, where his mom, a convert to Catholicism, raised him in the faith. During his high school years, he considered a call to monastic life through a Come and See program at St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark, NJ.

As the first baptized Catholic in his family and the first to attend college, Burke-Sivers completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame on an academic scholarship. A year after Burke-Sivers graduated, he joined the monastery. But soon after, his mom became ill, and he took a temporary leave to care for her. During that time, he met his future wife and left the monastery permanently for a career in law enforcement. Still feeling a call to serve God in the church, he studied to become a permanent deacon for the Archdiocese of Portland, which led him to the University of Dallas.

Burke-Sivers speaks highly of the “rock star professors” he studied under from 1997 to 2000 as he earned his Master of Theological Studies from UD. The professors and classmates he met during that time helped him realize his gift for speaking and propelled him into ministry.

“My love and my passion were without a doubt fueled by my experience at the University of Dallas,” he says. “It was more than just academic formation. … It was a holistic approach to the Catholic faith.”

The spiritual formation he received at UD “changed everything.”

“It changed the way I thought about my faith, the Mass; it changed the way I thought about my diaconal ministry; it really laid a very strong foundation in my life for everything that I’m doing today,” Burke-Sivers said.

It also, on a practical level, connected him to the people who saw his potential as a speaker and had the connections to launch him into that career. Burke-Sivers worked as a research assistant to Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ, who then went on to host a show on the Catholic television network EWTN and invited Burke-Sivers to speak on one of his programs. One of Deacon Harold’s classmates, Carl Olson, MTS ’00, who later became the editor of The Catholic World Report and a prolific author, was the first to ask him to give a talk at a parish.

Burke-Sivers was ordained a deacon in 2002. He continued speaking and giving retreats part-time, but he never intended to leave his career to speak full-time. In 2001, he was named police chief for the University of Portland police force and enjoyed a successful career teaching contemporary threat assessment. He even ran his own consulting company teaching target hardening, or evaluating processes and procedures for school districts, colleges and private businesses to help them lessen their threat of becoming targets of terrorism.

But in 2011, that all began to change. One day in Adoration, Burke-Sivers had an experience where he says the Lord gave him “a very strong interior feeling that He needed me to do a different type of threat assessment — for souls.” Burke-Sivers felt directed to take a leap of faith into full-time ministry. As he tells it, he resisted, saying, “‘Uh … no! I’m very comfortable where I am in my life right now.’ … [But] the Lord directed my gaze to a crucifix and said, ‘If you want to take your relationship with me to the next level, you gotta get uncomfortable.’” Over the next year, he and his wife discerned his career change, and in 2012 he resigned from law enforcement and began his full-time speaking career.

Burke-Sivers has a passion for ministering to families. He often speaks to young people and addresses parents about raising children to love Jesus. As a father of four himself, Burke-Sivers says that everywhere he speaks — covering seven different countries this past year — the number one problem parents identify is that their children have left the faith. Young people say they want to hear the truth and that they aren’t hearing it.

“Jesus says, ‘You will know the truth and the truth will set you free’ — but set you free to do what?” Burke-Sivers asks. “To become the person who God created you to be. And I think that’s what the University of Dallas does extremely well. The kind of formation the University of Dallas is offering is extremely important, especially for our culture today.”

Jodi Hunt, PhD, current executive director of the Ann & Joe O. Neuhoff Institute for Ministry and Evangelization, says UD’s ministry programs continue to ground practical training in theological depth.

“Today, the Neuhoff Institute, in partnership with the graduate programs in ministry, continues to offer intellectual formation for men across the United States who, like Deacon Harold, feel called to serve the Catholic Church as a deacon. Depending on diocesan formation requirements, these men either pursue a master’s degree in theological studies or, like here in Dallas, an intensive intellectual formation program that requires them to devote their weekends and evenings to studying theology and ministry,” Hunt said.

“The goal of the formation that UD offers is centered upon offering these men not only an opportunity to form their theological methods of teaching and preaching the faith, but to also afford them an opportunity to grow in community together and with the Spirit.”

Burke-Sivers encourages fellow Crusaders to heed God’s call in their lives, especially the universal call of the Great Commission.

“We have to reintroduce people to Jesus, and that’s why an alum from the University of Dallas will be very equipped to go out in that mission field and to witness to the power of God’s love working in their lives.”