Via Claude Muncey (who said he was going to blog on this, but hasn’t yet..)
James Tramel awakened Sunday in a prison cell. He went to sleep Sunday night in the rectory of a church he will help lead.
It was a day of transformation for Tramel, 38, who is believed to be the first prison inmate ordained as an Episcopal priest. He was convicted more than 20 years ago of murdering a homeless man in a park.
At the Berkeley church where he will live and serve as an assistant pastor, parishioners view him as a walking testament to the power of redemption.
"God came through!" said Linda Finch Hicks, a 51-year-old member of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, an exquisitely refurbished Victorian structure in West Berkeley.
"A lot of people have been working on this for a very long time. This is what church is about — Jesus gave us an opportunity for redemption, and it’s real."
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