{"id":152836,"date":"2016-06-21T05:00:18","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T09:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/ask-a-priest-could-a-convicted-felon-become-a-catholic\/"},"modified":"2024-10-22T15:16:41","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T19:16:41","slug":"ask-a-priest-could-a-convicted-felon-become-a-catholic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/ask-a-priest-could-a-convicted-felon-become-a-catholic\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAsk a Priest: Could a Convicted Felon Become a Catholic?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<address>Q: Could you explain the steps I would need to take to become a Catholic? And would the Catholic Church allow me to become a member if I am a convicted felon? -G.<\/address>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC<\/p>\n<p>A: It is good to hear that you are interested in entering the Church. Being a convicted felon is no bar to your becoming Catholic. We are all sinners, so we all need Christ&#8217;s mercy. He extends that mercy in a particular through the Church and through the sacraments.<\/p>\n<p>To join the Church you would need to be introduced to its teachings and practices.<\/p>\n<p>A good first step would be to contact a Catholic parish and ask about entering an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/beliefs-and-teachings\/who-we-teach\/rite-of-christian-initiation-of-adults\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RCIA program<\/a>. The RCIA is a program that will teach you about the beliefs and practices of the Church.<\/p>\n<p>It would be helpful to find a sponsor, a Catholic who could accompany you on your spiritual journey.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime you might try reading the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vatican.va\/archive\/compendium_ccc\/documents\/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Compendium of the Catechism<\/a> or the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/beliefs-and-teachings\/what-we-believe\/catechism\/us-catholic-catechism-for-adults\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">U.S. Catholic Catechism for Adults<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Try to make time for prayer each day. Read the Gospels and get to know the person of Jesus Christ; he is the head of the Catholic Church and the reason why any of us is here. I wish you well on your journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Q: Could you explain the steps I would need to take to become a Catholic? And would the Catholic Church allow me to become a member if I am a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":362,"featured_media":145952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3718],"tags":[3854,3855,4721,3295,4722,4723,3849,3856,3055,4707,3823],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-152836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ask-a-priest","tag-ask-a-catholic-priest","tag-ask-a-priest","tag-becoming-a-catholic","tag-catholic","tag-convicted-felon","tag-felon","tag-general","tag-mass-sacraments","tag-mercy","tag-rcia-program","tag-sacraments"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.8 (Yoast SEO v28.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u201cAsk a Priest: Could a Convicted Felon Become a Catholic?\u201d - Regnum Christi<\/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.regnumchristi.com\/en\/ask-a-priest-could-a-convicted-felon-become-a-catholic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cAsk a Priest: Could a Convicted Felon Become a Catholic?\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Q: Could you explain the steps I would need to take to become a Catholic? 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He was an assistant publisher of the National Catholic Register and Faith &amp; Family magazine and an editor of the Zenit news agency\u2019s English edition. He has written for\u00a0SpiritualDirection.com\u00a0and\u00a0ePriest. Fr. McIlmail also worked in spiritual retreats in the Northeast, New England, the Midwest, and the South\u00a0and assisted with mission work in Mexico. Born in Philadelphia, he worked in journalism and was active in the pro-life movement before entering the novitiate of the Legion of Christ in 1992. His contributions to RCSpirituality include responding to\u00a0Ask A Priest\u00a0questions and sharing his insights in our\u00a0Weekly Newsletter.","url":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/author\/emcilmail\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/362"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152836"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=152836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}