calibre does of course support the actual python releases.
IIRC, there are
also, workarounds for debian's "brilliant decision to partially backport patches" from 2.7.9 --> 2.7.8

Maybe this is more of the same? So the question would be, what stupid thing has CentOS done to the SSL module?
...
See, this is why I love Arch Linux. They may sometimes play games, but they usually manage to avoid pratfalls like
this.