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Judy and Dave Lorenz of Bowie, Maryland, lead CITI Ministries (Community is the Intent), which works toward the Catholic Church’s acceptance of married priests, in keeping with the Church’s own canon laws.

This is a link to a song Judy wrote on the subject, “Rebuild My Church”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf_nJXPeysM&list=UUGh3NQy-vs_6URZoWrMnZTw&index=1

Jack Wentland of Glastonbury, Connecticut, is a married priest who performs wedding ceremonies for couples who, for various reasons, cannot be married in the church.

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Caravaggio’s hot temper and propensity to wind up in drunken brawls didn’t stop him from creating some of the world’s most beautiful religious art.

From top: Ottavia Leoni’s ‘Drawing of the Portrait of Caravaggio’ (Florence, Biblioteca Marucelliana); St. Francis in Ecstasy by Caravaggio; exterior of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford; at the doorway to the Caravaggio exhibit, up until June 16; University of Hartford’s Hillyer College art professor Fran Altvater, who serves as Reasonably Catholic‘s Sister Wendy on today’s episode.

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Passionist Father John Baptist Pesce of West Hartford, CT

In support of his point that the Church requires us to be guided by our conscience, Father John quotes former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger:

“Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary evern against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official Church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increaing totalitarianism. Genuine ecclesiastical obedience is distinguished from any totalitarian claim which cannot accept any ultimate obligation of this kind beyond the reach of its dominating will.”