{"id":2800,"date":"2008-09-22T12:05:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-22T12:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/i-see-you-in-a-black-shirt-with-a-white-collar.html"},"modified":"2008-09-22T12:05:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-22T12:05:00","slug":"i-see-you-in-a-black-shirt-with-a-white-collar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/i-see-you-in-a-black-shirt-with-a-white-collar.html","title":{"rendered":"I see you in a black shirt with a white collar…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conversion stories don’t come any more compelling or unusual than this one<\/a>, about a tarot reader who became a Catholic priest:<\/p>\n

My earliest memories of the occult revolve around an near obsession with the TV shows “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Jeannie.” Nothing exactly dark and loathsome there. However, the idea that it was possible for me as a human to manipulate matter with my will alone was very, very compelling. Now, I never believed that the kind of magic done on those shows was really possible. But they stoked my imagination and lead me to further studies.<\/p>\n

As a teenager I played with a Ouija Board with one of my friends. We did all the things that kids do to scare themselves\u2014looked for ghosts, chanted \u201cBloody Mary\u201d in front of the mirror, etc. My first inkling that this sort of thing might be dangerous came when I read a second-hand book on demonology. Is this stuff really, really real? This book scared me just enough to push me into a deeper curiosity and further research. By this time I had been introduced to the Catholic Church on a class trip to Mexico. All of the sacramental elements of the Church were on full-display in the Mexican Baroque churches we visited, especially the National Cathedral. Our Lady of Guadalupe grabbed me in Mexico City, and I had a profound conversion experience at 17, feeling powerfully the call to be a priest. Never having been to Mass or confession or anything else remotely Catholic, this experience of being called to priesthood was confusing and scary. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s quite a yarn. Visit his blog<\/a> for the whole thing. <\/p>\n

H\/T The Curt Jester<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conversion stories don’t come any more compelling or unusual than this one, about a tarot reader who became a Catholic priest: My earliest memories of the occult revolve around an near obsession with the TV shows “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Jeannie.” Nothing exactly dark and loathsome there. However, the idea that it was possible…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-converts","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\nI see you in a black shirt with a white collar... - 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\/2008\/09\/i-see-you-in-a-black-shirt-with-a-white-collar.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I see you in a black shirt with a white collar... - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Conversion stories don’t come any more compelling or unusual than this one, about a tarot reader who became a Catholic priest: My earliest memories of the occult revolve around an near obsession with the TV shows “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Jeannie.” Nothing exactly dark and loathsome there. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2800","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\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}