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“I had no idea I would be confronted with my sexuality so immediately,” says Jacques Lamarre, playwright and communications director of the Mark Twain House in Hartford. He spent a year and a half pursuing the priesthood in Rome in the early ’90s. Most of his classmates were gay, and half left without becoming priests. “It was just a very weird, weird culture.”

In the news:

UN to Vatican: Do the Right Thing

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2014/02/05/scathing-u-n-report-demands-vatican-act-against-clerical-sex-abuse-of-children/

Real life Philomena meets Pope Francis

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/philomena-lee-meets-pope-francis/2014/02/05/99c46ca6-8e9d-11e3-878e-d76656564a01_story.html

The Sisters Speak

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/02/us/nuns-speak-about-vatican-criticism.html?_r=0

Frank Bruni column: “A Pope You Can Eat”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/bruni-a-pope-you-can-eat.html

Sr. Megan, 84, sentenced for anti-nuclear activism

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/2/18/radical-84-year-oldnuntobesentencedforantinuclearactivism.html

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Pat McCloskey, OFM, revised the latest edition of Saint of the Day (Franciscan Media). Find more — including a Saint of the Day app — at the website, http://www.stanthonymessenger.org. Also see Fr. Pat’s article, “Pope Francis: Why the Name Fits”: http://www.stanthonymessenger.org/article.aspx?ArticleID=167

Barbara Pivarnik, who puts her Catholic faith in action by sitting with the dying and reaching out to prison inmates.

Reasonably Catholic‘s spiritual director, Fr. John Baptist Pesce, quoting St. Teresa of Avila: “When I pray, I pray. When I eat, I eat.” At the top of today’s episode, he shares some reflections on holiness and how he can recognize a “living saint.”

In the news:

But perhaps a mixed blessing? Pope Francis calls the internet a “gift from God”:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/23/the-pope-calls-the-internet-a-gift-from-god/

and

Will he visit the U.S. in 2015?:
http://ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/vatican-sources-pope-francis-intends-visit-us-2015

Congratulations! Hofstra University Prof. Phyllis Zagano, a National Catholic Reporter columnist and frequent Reasonably Catholic guest, wins a social justice award. The story and her acceptance speech can be found here:
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/zagano-accepts-social-justice-award

Rosa rocks! At the State of the Union address, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) reacts to President Obama’s call for equal pay for equal work for women.