St. Paris the Repentant, Maybe

June 26, 2007 — -- The frenzy of photographers' flashbulbs surrounding Paris Hilton as she left the Los Angeles County Jail early this morning isn't exactly the flash of light Saul of Tarsus saw on the road to Damascus, but the errant heiress swears she has found God.

In her three-week confinement, Hilton, 26, gave several telephone interviews from the Los Angeles County Jail, in which she expressed a new found spirituality and promised to dedicate her life to a number of do-gooder causes, among them a halfway house for released inmates, a playground for sick children and a multiple sclerosis charity.
"God has given me this new chance," she told ABC News' Barbara Walters."My spirit or soul did not like the way I was being seen and that is why I was sent to jail," she said. "God has released me."

From sex tapes to drunk driving arrests, the world has watched Hilton continuously debase herself. All eyes are again on America's favorite celebutante, but this time people are watching to see if she will keep her word and really turn over a new leaf.

Hilton surely isn't the first person to find God in prison. In 1974 Charles Colson, aide to Richard Nixon and an architect of the Watergate break-in, spent seven months in jail and came out born again enough to found Prison Fellowship, a Christian group that ministers to prisoners.

"I've worked with, quite literally, thousands of men and women in hundreds of prisons all over the world and I have seen countless conversions. Prison is a tough environment with few distractions, there is ample time to take a hard look at yourself," said Colson.

Colson said he wanted to believe that Hilton would leave behind her old life of hard partying and scandal making for the straight and narrow.

"I'm not a cynic, I start wanting to believe. If this were true with her, I'd be thrilled to death," he said.

Colson said the 23 days that Hilton has spent in jail for violating her parole and drinking and driving with a suspended license was long enough for him to believe that her commitment to change was authentic.

"Twenty-three days is a pretty long time for someone not used to it. I found my first 23 days pretty sobering. I had gone from the White House to prison," he said.

Last week, Hilton told the E! network's Ryan Seacrest that she wanted to open a "transitional home" to help released prisoners acclimate to society.