Reporter Tom Breen was baptized Catholic, but says his father wasn’t particularly driven to make sure he or his brother were raised as active members of the faith, and his mother died when he was very young.
After college, Breen pursued a career in journalism and was assigned to cover a few local stories related to the clergy sexual abuse scandal for his job at the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Realizing that he didn’t know much about Catholicism, he resolved to learn what he could, and soon started pitching stories on religious topics that had nothing to do with the abuse scandal, hoping to bring himself up to speed. This continued as Breen moved to the Journal Inquirer, after he discovered that he was interested not just in Catholic stories, but in religion generally.
Once hooked on religion coverage, he became a devout Catholic, going through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. From 2006-2012, he worked as a reporter for the Associated Press.
Breen is now a University Relations Associate at The University of Connecticut.