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Dr. Maryanne Stevens and Senator Deb Fischer

CSM president inspired, energized after seeing Pope - Omaha World-Herald

Friday, September 25, 2015

By Erin Grace, Omaha World-Herald columnist

“Wasn’t he amazing?!”

Sister Maryanne Stevens is not prone to gushing. The longtime university president, a steady-as-she-goes Sister of Mercy, is not a jumper, a shouter or a crier.

Yet after seeing the rock star known as Pope Francis in the hallowed chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives, Stevens couldn’t help herself. She had teared up when he entered. She almost fell out of her chair when he mentioned two of her personal heroes, Martin Luther King Jr. and Dorothy Day. She had teared up then, too.

“He was brilliant. He took icons of American history and called us to live their ideals,” she said in a phone interview an hour later from the U.S. Senate office of her hostess, Deb Fischer.

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