From Atheist to Baptized at 70: One Man's Journey Home

It started with a handshake.

Not a debate. Not an argument. Just an invitation.

On a recent episode of Heroic Hotline, I sat down with longtime friend and ministry leader Richard Beaulieu to follow up on a conversation about what we call “handshake outreach,” the simple, human act of inviting a man into something meaningful.
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What followed was a story neither of us planned to tell, but one that captured exactly what that outreach can look like when it is patient, relational, and rooted in trust. 

A tap on the shoulder

Richard spoke about a friend he had known for years, a self-described atheist. “He would say he was an atheist,” Richard said, “but he would also tell these childhood stories.”

The stories always returned to one memory in particular, his grandfather, a Russian Orthodox priest, with long vestments and a long gray beard. “He would talk about it like it was nonsense,” Richard said. “But there was something endearing about the way he told it.”

The friend also spoke of a fleeting moment with Jesus as a young man, an experience that came and went, and later joining a church baseball team. Once the season ended, so did church.

Richard did not push his friend. He did not argue theology. He simply listened.

And then came the tap. 

“I just thought, maybe if he walked into a Catholic church again,” Richard said, “he might feel that love he sensed when he was a kid.” So he bought him a ticket.
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An invitation to come and see

The invitation was to the God Squad Men’s Conference. “Come,” Richard told him. “What’s the worst that can happen? You get a free lunch.”

The conference that year carried a weighty theme, Memento Mori, remember your death. Speakers included Father Raymond de Souza and Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, whose invitation to “come home to the Church” left a deep impression.

“For him,” Richard said, “it was a mountaintop experience.” 

“All of a sudden, the fog breaks, and there they are.”

​Walking with him after the high

Richard knew the experience could not stand alone. “You don’t leave a man floundering after that,” he said. “You journey with him.”

So the next invitation came, an Alpha program at their parish. Dinner included. No pressure. Still, something had shifted.  

The man was not ready to be prayed over. He was not ready for RCIA. But he was hungry. “I want more,” he told Richard.

He began attending RCIA just to explore. Then Mass. Then blessings during Communion. “A year earlier, he said, ‘No, it wouldn’t feel right,’” Richard said. “Now he was going up.”

Eventually, he said the words Richard had been waiting for, “I want to receive.”

At 70 years old, after a long RCIA process that included canonical complications, the man was baptized at the Easter Vigil on April 19, 2025.

“He used to call himself ‘one of the others,’” Richard said, referencing the labourers in the vineyard who arrive late but receive the same wage.

“He felt guilty about that,” Richard said. “Until he began to understand God’s unfathomable mercy.”

Memento Mori

That joy was soon tested.

In August, the man was diagnosed with aggressive cancer. By October 18, he had passed away. “He was part of the Church militant for six months,” Richard said.

His wife later told Richard that without faith, he would have been an angry patient, frustrated with doctors, with her, and with the world. “Instead,” Richard said, “he had peace. All the time.” A supernatural peace. “The only kind that can be inspired by faith.”

Richard connected the story to an account from the French Revolution, of religious sisters who went to their deaths with peace and forgiveness. “Only a faith inspired by courage could allow them to die that way,” he said.

The same courage, he believed, marked his friend’s final months. 

“Memento mori,” Richard added. “Remember your death.”

One more soul

The message Richard left with listeners was simple. “I always pray for one more soul,” he said. “Just one more than yesterday.”  

“Who’s the man in your life you need to tap on the shoulder? Buy him a coffee. Invite him. Walk with him.”

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Submitted by Sean Lynn, God Squad / Heroic Men Canada.