March 20, 2005

We’ve lost one longtime intern—but regained another.

Wouldn’t you know it—as soon as I publicly described Toni Pacitti as our “semipermanent” intern, she gave notice. Not, you’ll note, because of anything I said in my last column.

Toni is now homeschooling her youngest son, Christopher, and she didn’t have a lot of discretionary time to begin with. Toni is the kind of mom who puts her family first, and at this point her duties with the ETC—putting together “parish notes” and “on the calendar” each issue and writing the occasional feature article (see “Sacred Heart enthronement goes to Haiti,” beginning on page 7) have to take a back seat to her other responsibilities. I hope that one day when she has more time she may again serve as a regular correspondent.

I know of two events she’s eager to cover (the visits of Scott Hahn and Father John Corapi to East Tennessee), so we haven’t seen the last of Toni. But I’ll miss working with her on an every-issue basis.

Toni applied for the intern’s spot in fall 2002, and her byline first appeared on pages 4 and 5 in the Nov. 10, 2002, issue. I hired her more or less sight unseen, on the basis of an e-mail she wrote, expressing her interest in the job. She wrote well and conversationally and was obviously intelligent. We got along famously when I called her to discuss the job and its duties, and by the time she came in for an interview, I’d made up my mind.

In the last two-plus years we’ve had plenty of wide-ranging conversations—about politics, the Catholic Church, books, movies, popular culture, you name it. Toni, I’ll miss having you around the office. You’ve done an excellent job for us. (I’ll also miss Chris, who often accompanied Toni.)

When Toni gave notice, I wondered how long it would take to fill her position. As it happens, I mentioned the opening to our former “semipermanent” intern, Tim Scripa, who held the job for a couple of years before Toni, and to my delight, he expressed an interest in helping us out, at least for a while. Tim’s finished college and is working full time, but while he’s discerning his direction, he has a bit of time to spare. I’m very pleased to welcome him back.