{"id":1575,"date":"2007-07-13T14:19:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-13T14:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html"},"modified":"2007-07-13T14:19:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-13T14:19:00","slug":"conversion-of-another-kind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html","title":{"rendered":"Conversion of another kind"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> Over the years, countless people have taken oaths on the Fourth of July to become American citizens — and it turns out more than a few of them have been Catholic priests<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Growing up in Ireland, Father Frank McNamee always saw America as a symbol of freedom, he said. The pastor of St. Peter Chanel Church in Roswell, Ga., reflected on the similar histories of his homeland and his adopted country. He recently noted his one-year anniversary of becoming a U.S. citizen. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn Ireland, we fought for the right to religion and for Catholics to own their own land – and people sacrificed their lives for that,\u201d he said. He saw that same hunger for freedom in America\u2019s history. <\/p>\n

While information about the branches of the U.S. government and names of presidents are part of the basic \u201ctest\u201d to become a U.S. citizen, Father McNamee was amused by one question in particular. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had to answer – what is July 4 for?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the guy who tested me was Catholic – there was a calendar of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit on his wall,\u201d he said with a laugh. His answer? <\/p>\n

\u201cIndependence.\u201d <\/p>\n

Although he still visits relatives in Galway, Ireland, Father McNamee said his U.S. citizenship makes it much easier for him to pass through immigration. But he\u2019s not staying overseas too long. <\/p>\n

\u201cGeorgia is my home, Atlanta is my home – I\u2019m not going to retire in Ireland,\u201d he said. \u201cI appreciate the freedom of this country. America has a short history (in comparison to Ireland\u2019s), but they have sacrificed much for their freedom.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/i> Bless ’em all. <\/p>\n

Often, the most devout Catholics are converts. And perhaps the most devoted Americans are converts of another kind, too. <\/p>\n

Photo: Matt Rourke, AP<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the years, countless people have taken oaths on the Fourth of July to become American citizens — and it turns out more than a few of them have been Catholic priests: Growing up in Ireland, Father Frank McNamee always saw America as a symbol of freedom, he said. The pastor of St. Peter Chanel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nConversion of another kind - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Conversion of another kind - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the years, countless people have taken oaths on the Fourth of July to become American citizens — and it turns out more than a few of them have been Catholic priests: Growing up in Ireland, Father Frank McNamee always saw America as a symbol of freedom, he said. The pastor of St. Peter Chanel…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-07-13T14:19:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/RpfEM9-lsYI\/AAAAAAAAAQ4\/hOdnjsmrblA\/s320\/060614_flagDay_hmed_11a.hmedium%5B1%5D.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Conversion of another kind - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Conversion of another kind - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"Over the years, countless people have taken oaths on the Fourth of July to become American citizens — and it turns out more than a few of them have been Catholic priests: Growing up in Ireland, Father Frank McNamee always saw America as a symbol of freedom, he said. The pastor of St. Peter Chanel…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2007-07-13T14:19:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/RpfEM9-lsYI\/AAAAAAAAAQ4\/hOdnjsmrblA\/s320\/060614_flagDay_hmed_11a.hmedium%5B1%5D.jpg"}],"author":"deacon greg kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html","name":"Conversion of another kind - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/RpfEM9-lsYI\/AAAAAAAAAQ4\/hOdnjsmrblA\/s320\/060614_flagDay_hmed_11a.hmedium%5B1%5D.jpg","datePublished":"2007-07-13T14:19:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-07-13T14:19:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/RpfEM9-lsYI\/AAAAAAAAAQ4\/hOdnjsmrblA\/s320\/060614_flagDay_hmed_11a.hmedium%5B1%5D.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/RpfEM9-lsYI\/AAAAAAAAAQ4\/hOdnjsmrblA\/s320\/060614_flagDay_hmed_11a.hmedium%5B1%5D.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/conversion-of-another-kind.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Conversion of another kind"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10","name":"deacon greg kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","caption":"deacon greg kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}