The Donald S. Nesti CSSp Center for Faith and Culture has hired alumna Bridget Richardson MAFC ’17, to serve as assistant director of Pastoral and Ecumenical Initiatives where she will aid the Center with its mission to meet the culture where it is, breathe life into current events and be the Catholic voice driving the conversation on many important cultural and current events.

“I have always had a heart for ecumenism because my husband is Church of Christ,” Richardson said. ”It is a lived experience, it is what we bring to the world through our marriage. So it is not so foreign to me and it is not this cool idea, it is my life. So in a way it is very vocational.”

Richardson previously worked for UST in 2011 when she worked in the Marketing Communications Department. It was through her work there that she first learned of the Center.

“I was looking into the master’s programs and was leaning toward business because it is good to have a business degree, but talking to my boss at the time, Sandy Soliz, she suggested I look at the CFC.”

Richardson was drawn to the program due to its unique vision and approach. The Center’s goal is to help people understand the Catholic faith in the dominant American culture that we live in and what it means to practically live out our political thought, personal life, and every aspect of our lives through our dual citizenship—that is as citizens of heaven but also citizens of the United States.

Richardson found the program to be foundational and applicable to any career path. As such, CFC has had students from many work backgrounds, including lawyers, accountants, stay-at-home-mothers and journalists.

“What the program taught me was dialogue and personal encounter,” Richardson said. “When someone walks into my office and asks me to do something that encounter is not about getting the task done, it is an opportunity to meet them where they are at and be in their lives.”

Richardson previously served as the Director of Communications at Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church in Northwest Houston.