Nono Giorno - Sunday Best for the Ambassadore and Doria Pamphili

We woke up today and put on our sunday best even though it was thursday, you may ask why? Well we were going to see the Ambassador to the Holy See! So, of course we had to look nice and surprisingly we are a very good looking bunch when were all done up. Anyway, we got to the embassy and had to give in our id's to the guard. Then he called us in one by one, we were met by Nathan Blans, who is in charge of Public Relations for the embassy. His job is to talk to the media and answer any questions for the ambassador and the embassy. Also, to set up different conferences and talks for the ambassador and set up appointments with the media( there are only two major media outlets for the vatican, vatican radio and the observatory romano, the vatican newspaper.)

He took us inside where we had to go through a little security check and then on to the main room where we all sat down and waited for the ambassador. Then the ambassador came down. He greeted us and asked a little bit about our college and everything. Then he asked if anyone spoke italian and I timidly raised my hand, which he countered by immeadiately starting a conversation in italian with me. It was short, but I got to speak italian with the U.S. ambassador to the holy see!

The ambassador happens to be the first hispanic ambassador and first professor/ theologian ambassador. He is cuban american from florida and used to be a professor. His job now is to combine resources of the U.S. government and the network of the catholic church and help them advance U.S. policy within the catholic church.

Also, If you were wondering the Holy See refers to the vatican. It is a way to describe vatican city, basically, the vatican is an actual place, but the catholic church is worldwide and huge, so the holy see encompasses all of that into one.

He engages with the Holy See on many matters, not just religious. During his time he has hosted 3 major international conferences -

• prevention of HIV/AIDS from mother to child


• a dialogue on interfaith action - trying to engage people in all different communities, religious backgrounds to come together to help resolve conflicts etc.


• Building bridges of freedom - to end modern day slavery

He said that he wants to try to have people "come together, so we can produce a better yield for everyone!" He was saying also that it is important to engage conversation across the world about religion, because "religion needs diplomacy and diplomacy needs religion."

What I really got from this visit though was that there are so many different options for careers out there. He was a professor 4 years ago, and now he is an ambassador in Italy! If you want to get out there and try new things there are so many different outlets and places to go. It just made me think that I can do so much with my life outside of the U.S. It gave me hope and ideas of possible things I can explore in my future. In the scheme of things, I'm still young!