A Personal Letter to Pope Leo

August 22, 2025

His Holiness Pope Leo XIV
c/o The Holy Spirit
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City

Dear Most Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV; 

Mark Twain once wrote, “I have no modesty and would as soon write an Emperor as to anybody else.” Over the last year, I have embraced this same arrogant (or perhaps ignorant) perspective, sending type-written letters to Mr. Tom Hanks, Fr. Jim Martin, and my Uncle Bill. If you can believe it, Holy Father, the only one who hasn’t responded is my Uncle Bill! During his lifetime, Mark Twain secured the rights to a Vatican-approved biography of Pope Leo XIII and, after vastly overestimating consumer interest in such a work, his publishing company went bankrupt. So, with that important lesson in mind, I will refrain from requesting the rights to your biography. A couple decades after his death, Mark Twain was the recipient of a letter from Cardinal Albino Luciani who, as you know, would later become the first Pope John Paul. In his letter to Mark Twain, the future Pope described himself as a “poor wren who, on the lowest branch of the ecclesiastical tree, attempts to express some notion on very vast subjects.” I quite like that. 

This is the second letter I’ve written to a Pope, though it’s the first letter I’ve actually sent. I will explain that more in a moment. First, I’d like to tell you the story about my last memory of CCD before I decided to stop attending, shortly before my confirmation. 

My CCD teacher, Mr. Klepfer, asked the class whether any of us had ever experienced a miracle. The class sat in silence. I knew I had never experienced a miracle but I remembered a story my Mom had told me just a few weeks or months prior, before my Grandma, Catherine Teresa Benton, b. 1934, had passed away peacefully in our home in July 2007 – in the house she grew up in, that her father built, just down the road from St. Catherine’s parish in Hillcrest, NY. My Mom, a nurse, was caring for my Grandma when my Grandma began to say excitedly, “A rainbow! A rainbow! A rainbow!” My Mom looked out the window but couldn’t see anything. My Grandma was adamant, “A rainbow!” she said again. My Mom walked outside and above our home, in a place my Grandma couldn’t see, she saw a rainbow. 

I told this story to the class and Mr. Klepfer’s response caught me off guard. “How is that a miracle?” he asked bluntly.

I burst into tears and my classmates consoled me.

This story has remained central to my understanding as to why I left the Catholic Church. Of course, there are plenty of other reasons, too, of which you are certainly familiar. Over the next decade I pursued my education and career with a determined vigor. Then in 2021 I went back to school and pursued my doctorate and, by chance, ended up studying at the University of Dayton through an employer-sponsored online program. The Marianist traditions were embedded throughout our curriculum and we were assigned to read ‘Fratelli tutti’ by Pope Francis, which is when I first realized the Pope had written me a letter. My doctoral research was focused on how meaningful communities can be formed in online learning environments, the very thing I was, myself, experiencing. Throughout my time at UDayton I was given an example of a more meaningful life from my professors and peers; some Catholic, some Jewish, some Black, some white, some straight, and some gay. By the end of 2023 I had finished my dissertation, moved back home to Binghamton, left my for-profit tech job, and eventually returned to work for the University at Albany, SUNY where I studied from 2011-2017. 

All of that brings us to the first letter I ever wrote to a Pope – Pope Francis. And I suppose it’s worth noting now that Saint Francis of Assisi was my Grandma’s favorite saint. 

In May 2024 I was visiting my Mom at Horseshoe Pond, 13-acres of land my Grandma Benton purchased in 1973 and my absolute favorite place on Earth. As I was visiting, I said to my Mom that we should clean up the small shrine my Grandma had erected in the mid-2000s, tucked just inside the treeline behind the old red barn. The shrine features several statues of St. Francis and Mother Mary, along with St. Anthony and a few others that I’ve yet to identify. So, we set out to clean up the shrine. As we cleared the path and stood Mary back upright, I asked Mom whether she had any of the rosaries my Grandma hand-made and sold on Ebay back in 2004. My Mom said she thought she did and we could look when we got back to the mobile home. Soon enough the shrine was cleared and cleaned, we admired our work, and went back to the house. My Mom looked in the back room while I went into her bedroom, to a jewelry cabinet that I knew was full of my Grandmother’s belongings. I pulled open a drawer and found a leather pouch that said “My Rosary.” 

I unzipped the pouch and pulled out a red rosary. It was, I knew, my rosary. I walked to the back room, where my Mom had found a box of rosary-making materials and I showed her what I had found. 

“Look,” I said pulling the rosary out of the pouch again. My Mom beamed.. 

“She made that for you!” she said smiling. “She knew red was your favorite color and she made a green one for your brother!”

I knew she was right. I even had a distant memory of the rosary, first given to me shortly after I turned 10 years old. But still, Holy Father, I must admit: doubt remained. I don’t know why, but doubt remained. 

Then, standing there in the back room, I looked down at the rosary and noticed a pendant. It was a pendant my Grandma had attached to the red rosary. It was a pendant of Saint Nicholas. Yes, I knew, this was My Rosary. I laughed with delight as the doubt vanished. I knew I had experienced a personal miracle. 

The experience was profound. So profound, in fact, that I wrote a letter to Pope Francis that night telling him about the experience. After I wrote the letter I put it in an envelope, addressed it to His Holiness, and affixed it with several Mark Twain Forever stamps. For the return address, I put my childhood home where I grew up, where my Grandma had passed away, that her dad had built in the 1950s just down the road from St. Catherine’s which was, of course, renamed after St. Francis of Assisi in 2009. But, holding the letter, I felt as though sending what I wrote would somehow diminish the experience, and worried the letter was the result of my ego. So I tucked it away and kept the experience for myself, my family, and my friends. And, more importantly, I opened my heart to the Holy Spirit.

A few months later I was going through some boxes in the basement of my childhood home when I found a pamphlet my Grandma had made with detailed instructions of How to Make A Rosary. On the back there was a poem titled “Rosary Poem.” Soon after that I decided to write to Father Jim, sharing what I had experienced, as his ministry has meant a great deal to me. He was kind enough to reply and asked me to keep him in my prayers which I have tried my best to do. 

On Mother’s Day this year at Horseshoe Pond, I found an entire booklet of Rosary Poems that my Grandma Benton wrote and self-published in 2003, in response to Pope John Paul II’s Year of the Rosary. Several of them are anti-war poems. Interesting, I thought to myself. My Mom, Brother, and I visited my Grandma’s grave later that day and I recited St. Francis’s prayer from a prayer card I found among her belongings.   

Holy Father, all of this was enough. My doubt had been erased, my heart was open, and I was rediscovering my faith. Just before your election as supreme pontiff, I spoke with a priest in Albany about the possibility of pursuing confirmation. Unfortunately, such a pursuit would require me to invoke my conscience against Church doctrine, so I haven’t decided what to do. 

On Father’s Day weekend this year, my Mom called me with a story. A stranger had just visited Horseshoe Pond. She drove up the long, narrow driveway and onto the property where she was greeted by my Mom’s husband, Jack. The woman had been up a year prior after buying their dryer through Facebook Marketplace. My Mom was happy to receive the visitor and sensing a deeper reason, asked why she had decided to come back. She said she remembered how Jack talked about my Mom, who wasn’t there at the time, and she remembered the property, which reminded her of the property that her grandparents owned on Crocker Hill. This caught my Mom’s attention since Crocker Hill is just up the road behind my childhood home, where I grew up, and where my Grandma grew up, that her father built in the 1950s, just down the road from St. Catherine’s, now St. Francis’s. 

“Who were your grandparents,” my Mom asked.

“Michael and Kathleen Klepfer,” she said. 

As my Mom relayed this story, I was stunned. The stranger’s father was John Klepfer, my CCD teacher who asked if any of us had experienced a miracle, and who passed away in 2023. Before leaving Horseshoe Pond the stranger cried, hugged m y Mom, and thanked her.

“If she visits again,” I said, “make sure you take her to the Shrine.” 

Any and all doubt that I had about God was removed when I found My Rosary. This experience, though, has impacted me to such an extent that I still have not fully processed it. I’m well outside of my depth now, experiencing such beautiful events, and writing about them to a Pope – a Pope who happens to be from America, at that! 

I didn’t send my letter to Pope Francis because I didn’t want to diminish the personal experience I had upon finding My Rosary. Now, I am entirely compelled to share these stories, with complete certainty they are meant to be shared. 

In his letter to a deceased Mark Twain, the future Pope John Paul I wrote, “we can’t help smiling when we know how little there is behind certain titles and certain forms of celebrity,” and on that point, I certainly agree. But, of course, such a realization does not diminish the weight such titles carry in our worldly society, or the power such symbolism wields in the human mind. Holy Father, as you continue your ministry in peace, you will be the sound recipient of my sincere prayers, and I hope you continue to use your title, celebrity, grace, passion, humor, intellect, and clarity to spread peace and love for the duration of your pontificate. 

As you consider your first visit to the United States as the Bishop of Rome, I would like to invite you to Horseshoe Pond in Smithville Flats, New York – a small rural town 30 minutes outside of Binghamton. It sits at the intersection of modernity: a single utility pole feeds electricity in from the county road, and with it, infinite information that competes for attention with the simple serenity and peace offered by the land. I would like to invite you to pray at the Shrine my Grandma Benton built – a shrine erected to honor and celebrate Mother Mary and St. Francis, the animals and Earth, the angels and the Holy Spirit. Yes, it is a Catholic Shrine.

Finally, I would like to request that you declare another Year of the Rosary. I think we’re long overdue.