From the Rio Grande to the Tiber

SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS, August 26-A San Antonio woman is headed to Rome to serve as an intern at the American Embassy to the Vatican.

Fara Ferguson, a junior at Southwestern University, accepted the State Department internship this summer, and will fulfill the dream of many — living in Rome and working at the Vatican, in her case at an embassy that includes a staff of 10 under Ambassador Lindy Boggs.

Ferguson's duties will include answering cables between embassies, reading newspapers around the world to find any news relating to the Vatican, helping coordinate receptions, and assisting with the creation of a homepage on the World Wide Web.

She looks forward to the time away from work as well. She will live in a world where papal masses are commonplace and the luminaries of the Church are all around. “I'm looking forward to getting to know all of Italy,” she is quoted saying.

Vatican Angels Visit Detroit

DETROIT FREE PRESS, September 2, 1998-The Detroit Institute of Arts has found itself inundated with museum goers, as people have flocked to see its new exhibit, “Angels From the Vatican.”

The exhibit seems to be repeating the success it had in St. Louis, where more than 200,000 people came to see the show. In its first week in Detroit, 10,000 people have viewed it.

Fr. John West, from St. John's Center for Youth and Family, says that the Vatican's exhibit demonstrates the ability of the Church to feed the modern world's two hungers — for authentic spirituality and for genuine beauty.

“There's a hunger for spirituality these days; there's a spiritual renaissance. Angels call on that higher sense we have to know God. They help us realize we have one life to live and that we should do the best we can with it,” he is quoted saying.

Angels are important, said Fr. West, but so is art. The rich beauty of the Vatican was important to his own formation as a priest, he said. “Art is a constant reminder of the presence of God. I hope a lot of kids go see this exhibit; that's where the hunger is. They are looking for symbols, for images that bring a deeper understanding of God.”