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Two minutes and thirty seconds is all it took for Sean Bryan to complete the Los Angeles qualifier round of American Ninja Warrior. The season eight premiere of the hit NBC/Esquire show – which follows competitors as they try to complete obstacles courses of increasing difficulty – featured the amateur flying through every obstacle. He even climbed the newly designed, 14.5-foot Warped Wall on his first try. Bryan claimed 4th place and ranked among the show’s veterans, but something else caught everyone’s attention. On Bryan’s bright, yellow shirt was written: ‘Papal Ninja’. “I thought, how could I be a bit more explicit about my faith,” Bryan told CNA, “because it is quite explicit in my life.” The 31-year-old is an active member of the Catholic Church. His story, and the mystery behind his chosen competition name, were highlighted on American Ninja Warrior this month. The show explained Bryan’s history as a gymnast for the University of California, Berkley. While studying physics, Bryan competed mostly on parallel bars and rings. His team earned fifth place in the NCAA championship. It then revealed how Bryan discerned the priesthood with the Salesians of Don Bosco in California. Though Bryan discerned out, the episode showed how he stayed with the Salesians to finish his Masters in Theology with a Salesian Studies Concentration at the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology. The episode followed Bryan, who has now earned the degree, as he continues to live with the Salesians and help them as an assistant to the director, and special projects manager. He even turned their garage into an American Ninja Warrior training facility. Bryan also owns his own freelance design and videography business and works as the project manager for the Lay Mission Project – an initiative by the Western Dominican province, Diocese of Sacramento, Catherine of Siena Institute, Institute of Salesian Studies, and Our Sunday Visitor – to form lay Catholics ‘for the sake of animating the mission of the Church to secular society.’

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