This transcript is a personal and passionate message from a Catholic convert named Laura, addressed to Pope Leo XIV. In her message, she shares her journey to faith, which began with conversion in 2018 after overcoming severe depression and hopelessness as a former Buddhist.

The core of her communication is an earnest expression of concern and a call for the Pope to rely completely on God’s grace and constant discernment. She warns him against the influence of the devil and encourages him to expect failure as a path to holiness.

She then presents specific, deeply felt concerns about appointments and actions within the Church that she believes promote sin and undermine the faith, spanning topics from ordaining women to issues of doctrine and migration.

Dear Pope Leo XIV, my name is Laura.

I am a convert Catholic. I converted into the Catholic Church in 2018, and ever since I’ve been trying my best to give my life to Jesus Christ.

I grew up not knowing about God. I grew up practicing Buddhism. I was severely depressed. I was suicidal. I was hopeless. I grew up in a very broken family.

In the depths of my despair, I found our Lord Jesus Christ there. And I am a sinner. I am no one. And yet God sees me, and yet God loves me.

Even when I converted, I was very lukewarm. I was confused by the world. I was confused by people. I didn’t know right from wrong still. I didn’t know what was true. I didn’t know what was a lie.

I told Jesus, “I’ll come back later”. And he was very patient with me, and how awful I was for telling him, “I’ll come back later”. And with all of the patience of our God and all of the mercy, he brought me back to him. Our Blessed Mother Mary brought me back to her son.

I think about St. Augustine and how he says, “Late have I loved you. Truly late have I loved him”. And growing up, I didn’t know anything about the Vatican. I didn’t know anything about the Pope. And when I heard that the world was receiving a new pope, I was very curious. I was very hopeful to see what was to come.

And then you walked out, Holy Father. You looked very timid. You looked humbled to me. And I heard that you are American. I had a very proud moment, and afterwards I started praying for you. I started praying for many of the religious people because I am aware of the heavy weight of responsibility it is to be a leader of the Church.

You are the one who steers us onto the right path, who helps souls go to Heaven. You are the Vicar of Christ. You represent Jesus Christ. You represent Peter, Saint Peter. So, I knew I had to pray for you. And that was the best way I could love you. That is the best way I can love you.

Not only that, I understand I have to be honest with you. It is through honesty that we get to see Jesus better. So I will be honest out of love. And I’d like to let you know, Holy Father, why it’s so important to pray, why it’s so important to not rely on what people tell you, what the world tells you.

You constantly must discern. You are in the place where the devil loves to be around. He loves to mess with everyone. He loves to mess with you especially. So more than ever, you must rely on the grace of God. You must trust in the Lord. Have faith. Where is your faith? Have faith.

You must constantly lean on the Lord. Never lean on your own understanding. Always ask, “Is this the will of God? Is this what you want me to say? What is it that you believe? God, not me”. So pray, discern. Does this bring glory to him? Does this bear fruit?

I want you to know that you should expect failure. You should expect yourself to make mistakes. I make mistakes all of the time. Things that I thought to be true weren’t. I was very wrong. I will still be wrong. I will still make mistakes. What really helped me was I prayed. I said, “Lord, shine a light on the places that I am not aware of. What is true, help me to retain that. What is false, help me to forget that”.

He showed me many things that I was wrong about. But it’s better to know what is true, to live in reality, than to live in delusion. And it is through failure that we learn. It’s not through success. You don’t learn anything from success. You do change, and probably not in a good way. But you have the opportunity to be holier through trials, through failures.

Holy Father, I say this now out of love, and I hope you listen to me. I hope you listen to this one small soul who’s only worried about you, who’s worried about the Holy Mother Church, who’s worried about the many souls that fall into the cracks that exist in our Church. I will be expressing some of my concerns, things that I’ve noticed.

Holy Father, I hope you address these things. You should.

The bishop who you first appointed, Bishop Shane McKenley, he advocates to ordain women. There is no such thing. It is not within God’s law that we ordain women to be deacons or priests. You need to look at these people and the fruit that they bear. Is it rotten? It is.

These people do not hold God in their hearts. And not only that, they are shepherds. False shepherds. Wolves in sheep’s clothing who lead, I don’t know how many souls, to hell. You cannot overlook this. You cannot be passive in sin. Always discourage it.

Now this one, you have appointed the president of the Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts and Letters to a woman named Cristiana Perella. Now, I looked into her a little bit, a lot a bit. Have you seen her artwork? I myself am a self-proclaimed artist. I love to draw. I love the beauty that is hidden within art because that beauty reveals God.

The art that she advocates for, that she pushes, that she puts on exhibitions, right? They depict very perverse, inappropriate things. Homoerotic relationships. A man urinating on another man is an abomination. And she is someone who is appointed to exhibit sacred art. That is a hypocrite. She should not be allowed to do that. She does not represent what the Church believes in.

Holy Father, I saw that you held a private audience with Sister Lucia Caram… I do know what she has said, what she believes in, and what she advocates for. And it’s all horrible. It’s all sinful. She believes in same-sex relationships, abortion, contraception. She questioned our Holy Mother’s virginity. She questioned the virgin birth. And get this, she says she does not believe in hell. What kind of Catholic does not believe in hell?

Well, I’ll tell all of you now. I’ll tell you, Holy Father, it’s very real. We cannot allow these people to spread what is not true. And I don’t know what you spoke about with her, but I hope you told her to repent for her sins. Otherwise, you would have been complicit in all of this.

And the LGBTQ agenda that is an abomination to our Holy Church. It must be eradicated from the root. We must remove what is sinful in our Church. There was a Gay Mass held in San Diego by Bishop Ramon Bejarano. I don’t know how to say his name. But a Gay Mass does not exist.

The thing is, these bishops, these priests, they’re ordained to make ordinary bread into our Lord Jesus Christ. And it’s being handed out to sinners.

And of course, Bishop Strickland, a very courageous priest, spoke on the matter of a gay married couple who were confirmed by Father James Martin, and whoever else was involved. And they received the Holy Eucharist in their hands.

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