Diácono Hernando Patino

Deacon Hernando Patino was born in Bucaramanga, Colombia.  At age 16, he was drafted into the Colombian Military Forces.  He then went on to medical school and received a professional degree as General Surgeon from Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia in 1988 while also obtaining the degree in Pediatrics.  It was there that he met Franci, his future wife, at the Newborn Intensive Care Unit at the University Hospital, where they both bonded in love serving and caring for sick children. He migrated to United States in 1994 to complete studies in pediatrics and critical care at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY.

Upon arriving in the US, he became a long-time parishioner at St. Mary’s of Assumption in Elizabeth, NJ where he was involved as lector and along with his wife, they were active members of the marriage encounter movement helping married couples to thrive.

In addition, Deacon Hernando has worked for over 30 years in the pharmaceutical sector.  Currently, he works for Johnson & Johnson helping to develop new treatments for sick children, especially those with cancer.  He moved to Hunterdon County in 2014 where he found an oasis for his spiritual life at St Magdalen de Pazzi.  He became heavily involved in the Hispanic community serving as lector, extraordinary minister, musician, religious education teacher, and was a part of the Hispanic Parish Council. He also served at various diocesan initiatives.

Despite being close to priests in his early adulthood assisting with pre-cana formation and helping them with their missionary work in the mountains of rural areas in Colombia, and later in US being involved in several church ministries, Hernando never saw himself as a consecrated man. It all changed, around Pentecost in 2016 when asking for God’s will, he received the call from several sources to consider being a deacon.  Together with 15 other men, he entered in the first-ever fully Spanish-speaking class of diaconate candidates for service in the Diocese of Metuchen.  He was ordained on May 14, 2022, at the St Francis Cathedral where he also obtained a master’s degree in Theology from Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University.

In the year 2021, over several months and as part of an USCCB and Catholic Charities initiative, he had the opportunity to help in a camp of more than 7,500 Afghanistan Refugees in need of assistance starting over in a new country after a great loss, it profoundly marked the beginning of his diakonia.

It is an honor for him to be appointed to serve the community of St Magdalen de Pazzi as an ordained minister of the church to exercise to the fullest of his capabilities the three pillars of the diakonia: liturgy, proclaiming the word of God and charity. All of this has been possible, thanks to the support through prayer, sacrifice and commitment from his wife, Franci.