{"id":2873,"date":"2008-09-09T11:06:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-09T11:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html"},"modified":"2008-09-09T11:06:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-09T11:06:00","slug":"backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html","title":{"rendered":"Backing Barack: a young Catholic explains why"},"content":{"rendered":"

I stumbled across this essay<\/a> this morning and thought: “Well here’s something you don’t see every day.” It’s about how a Steubenville pro-life EWTN-watching, daily-mass-attending young Catholic came to support Barack Obama: <\/p>\n

<\/a> I started my freshman year at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, when I was barely 17, skipping my senior year of high school in my enthusiasm to get started on Catholic higher education. I quickly joined Students for Life, the campus pro-life group, and began spending Saturday mornings with 6 am mass and an hour drive to Pittsburgh to pray in front of the abortion clinic. That first year I was a bus captain on the trip to Washington, D.C. for the March for Life, as well as head of the Students for Life Prayer Team. I was interviewed on the conservative Catholic TV station EWTN as a young pro-life leader.<\/p>\n

On my breaks from school, I worked at my hometown’s Catholic bookstore, where I reorganized the books based on theological theme and offered customers advice about saints, prayer, and the like. I also volunteered at the local crisis pregnancy center, where we offered free pregnancy tests, infant formula, children’s clothing, and other services to help women who were pregnant and needed extra support. I went to daily mass and weekly confession, as I had since high school. I marched in the occasional local abortion protest. I read theology in my free time.<\/p>\n

I was, in other words, the perfect Steubenville Catholic student: devoted to my prayer life, diligent in my studies, involved in student life, and passionate about the pro-life cause.<\/p>\n

My Steubenville honeymoon was not to last, however.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Continue reading the rest<\/a> to find out why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I stumbled across this essay this morning and thought: “Well here’s something you don’t see every day.” It’s about how a Steubenville pro-life EWTN-watching, daily-mass-attending young Catholic came to support Barack Obama: I started my freshman year at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, when I was barely 17, skipping my senior year of high school…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-and-politicians","category-the-people-in-the-pews"],"yoast_head":"\nBacking Barack: a young Catholic explains why - 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\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Backing Barack: a young Catholic explains why - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I stumbled across this essay this morning and thought: “Well here’s something you don’t see every day.” It’s about how a Steubenville pro-life EWTN-watching, daily-mass-attending young Catholic came to support Barack Obama: I started my freshman year at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, when I was barely 17, skipping my senior year of high school…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-09T11:06:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SMaVmPpRLGI\/AAAAAAAAC7w\/uUN8xxsj4JY\/s200\/Franciscan-University-of-Steubenville-A16C1277%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":"Backing Barack: a young Catholic explains why - 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\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Backing Barack: a young Catholic explains why - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"I stumbled across this essay this morning and thought: “Well here’s something you don’t see every day.” It’s about how a Steubenville pro-life EWTN-watching, daily-mass-attending young Catholic came to support Barack Obama: I started my freshman year at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, when I was barely 17, skipping my senior year of high school…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2008-09-09T11:06:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SMaVmPpRLGI\/AAAAAAAAC7w\/uUN8xxsj4JY\/s200\/Franciscan-University-of-Steubenville-A16C1277%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\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html","name":"Backing Barack: a young Catholic explains why - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SMaVmPpRLGI\/AAAAAAAAC7w\/uUN8xxsj4JY\/s200\/Franciscan-University-of-Steubenville-A16C1277%5B1%5D.jpg","datePublished":"2008-09-09T11:06:00+00:00","dateModified":"2008-09-09T11:06:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/5a7b3c6e9d155e382842aa310ff9b1ee"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SMaVmPpRLGI\/AAAAAAAAC7w\/uUN8xxsj4JY\/s200\/Franciscan-University-of-Steubenville-A16C1277%5B1%5D.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SMaVmPpRLGI\/AAAAAAAAC7w\/uUN8xxsj4JY\/s200\/Franciscan-University-of-Steubenville-A16C1277%5B1%5D.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/backing-barack-a-young-catholic-explains-why.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Backing Barack: a young Catholic explains why"}]},{"@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\/5a7b3c6e9d155e382842aa310ff9b1ee","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\/114\/1144d939be636f641ea021e1d347f9fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/114\/1144d939be636f641ea021e1d347f9fdx96.jpg","caption":"Deacon Greg Kandra"},"description":"A Roman Catholic deacon serving the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, Greg Kandra is News Director for the diocese's cable channel, NET (New Evangelization Television.) 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\/2873","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=2873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}