The Roamin' Roman

Benvenuto! You have happened upon the blog of a wandering Catholic American college student studying for a year in Rome, the Eternal City. You will find here my pontifications, ruminations, reflections, images, and ponderings on my life in Rome. Ciao!

Friday, January 27

Visit by Ambassador Francis Rooney!




This past Wednesday evening, the Bernardi household had our final "community night" of the semester (Holy Hour, Mass, discussion, dinner) - it was bittersweet, since while I am staying here for the rest of the year most of the other students here are going back to the USA next week after one semester. We have one more community Mass together, tomorrow on the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas (patron of "both" of our universities!), but the days are going by quickly! I'm getting sad to see them all go, but excited that I am remaining, and excited to see the next bunch of students that will be arriving here for the spring semester in a couple of weeks!

Anyway - we were Providentially blessed on our final semester community night to have the newly appointed United States Ambassador to the Holy See, Mr. Francis Rooney, join us for Mass, discussion and dinner!

We were very honored to have the Ambassador come to speak with us; we were happy to find that he is an educated Catholic, and an easy speaker to listen to - very informed on the issues going on in the world that affect the US and the Vatican, and with a very clear vision of the distinctions between areas of focused interest to the state and of interest to the universal Church. It was a long and lively discussion, covering everything from the issues of the death penalty, terrorism and the war on Iraq to Supreme Court nominations and the abortion issue. I think we all got a lot out of it, including the Ambassador!

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