Greg Rasmussen

A young priest studying in Rome often prayed in a small church where beggars sat at the door. One of them made him uneasy. When he finally asked, “Do I know you?” the man answered, “Yes. I studied with you here and was ordained a priest.” Crisis after crisis had led him to renounce the priesthood. He had lost everything and now begged for a living. The priest could not forget him. When the time came for the students to receive a blessing from Pope John Paul II, the priest broke protocol and whispered a request for prayer for the former priest who sat begging outside a church in Rome. A few days later, both men received an unexpected invitation to dine with the Pope. After the meal, the Holy Father took the beggar aside. When they returned, the former priest later told his friend what had happened. Pope John Paul II had asked the man to hear his confession. When the beggar protested that he no longer had faculties, the Pope looked at him with compassion and said, “Once a priest, always a priest.” Then he restored the man’s priestly faculties, heard his confession, and afterward made his own confession to him. Before they left, the Pope gave him a new assignment: to serve as curate in the very parish where he had been begging, with special care for the poor at the church door. The story remains a powerful reminder that God’s mercy can reach even the most broken places and restore what seemed permanently lost.