TOLEDO, Ohio—Growing up in what he once referred to in a college essay as the ghetto of Toledo, Ohio, 19-year-old Baron Thoma never dreamed of going to Rome, let alone meeting Pope John Paul II.

But on Holy Saturday, he not only met the Pope but also was baptized, confirmed and received his first Communion from the man he can now call his “Holy Father.”

Thoma, who was raised in a family of 11 children with three different biological fathers, said in an interview that he was still in shock and awe after his reception into the Church during the April 19 Easter Vigil in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. He was the only American in a group of seven people who were baptized and confirmed by the Pope.

Speaking from Rome, where he is now living with the Miles Jesu community, Thoma said he learned about a month before Easter that he would be coming into the Church during the Pope's Holy Saturday Vigil when his superior asked him if he wanted to be baptized by the Pope.

“I said, ‘Yeah,” Thoma said. “We had a meeting with Cardinal [Alfonso] Lopez Trujillo [president of the Pontifical Council for the Family] ... Then everything happened.”

Thoma said he was excused from the mandatory two-year catechumenate because of the formation he was undergoing in the Miles Jesu community. On March 8 he was officially received as a catechumen at the Basilica of St. John Lateran.

At the three-and-a-half-hour-long Easter Vigil, besides being baptized, confirmed and receiving his first holy Communion, he was among those who presented the offertory gifts to the Pope.

After the vigil, he said, he was able to greet the Pope and wish him a happy Easter. “He gave me a rosary,” Thoma added.

Growing up, Thoma had only a minimal exposure to religion and church through his Baptist stepfather before his family was split up and placed in foster care. Later, in a foster home, he became involved in a Lutheran youth group. But when he met the family of Thad and Cindy Beeley through their son Mark, a high school classmate, he became intrigued with their Catholic faith.

Cindy Beeley said Thoma moved in with the family in February 2002 after he had difficulty living on his own following his release from foster care. The Beeleys, who have six children, also have taken in other young people in the past and their Perrysburg, Ohio, home is often a gathering place for their children's friends.

“We' just open and friendly and as far as the faith goes; we have symbols of faith all over the place,” Beeley said. “People know when they walk in our house that we' Catholic.”

Besides that, Beeley said, her family isn' shy about discussing their faith. “We get into really deep discussions. We talk about God a lot. That's just how our family is. We ponder things. If we hear something on the news, it always seems to come up that we talk about God a lot and about seeking his will.”

In addition, Beeley said her son, Mark, is an avid evangelist who led a former girlfriend into the Church recently. The family's lively faith also figured in the conversion of another of Mark's friends, who entered the Church this Easter at St. Rose Parish in Perrysburg, where Cindy Beeley served as his sponsor in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) program.

Now, the girlfriend of the Beeleys’ son Steve is expressing an interest in Catholicism and is going to Mass regularly. When the young woman went into the Marines, Beeley said, “Thad gave her his cross and we gave her a rosary and told her how to pray it.”

Beeley credits her son Mark's interest in Miles Jesu with inspiring Thoma to join the community and eventually the Church. Mark lived with a Miles Jesu community briefly while trying to discern whether he had a vocation and, when the family went to visit him in Chicago, Thoma announced that he, too, had decided to join.

Shortly before that, Cindy Beeley said her husband had a talk with Thoma about his future. “Thad suggested he had to think about his life and where he was going and what God's will was for his life. Baron said later that talk really had an impact on him.”

When Thoma decided to join Miles Jesu, Cindy Beeley said, “He was so happy and at peace ... He kept saying ‘I'going to learn so much about Christ and serve Christ with my life.”

In a letter Thoma wrote to the Beeleys on March 11 to tell them he was going to be baptized by the Pope, he said he would be receiving a white robe to symbolize his new life in Christ.

“Then on Sunday, the 27th of April, [Divine] Mercy Sunday, at the Basilica of St. Lawrence outside the Walls, there's a special Mass and ceremony where I will take off my white alb and lay it on the tomb of the martyrs there, praying that they help me be faithful all the days of my life. Exciting, huh?” Thoma wrote.

Cindy Beeley said Thoma called her family on Easter to talk about the vigil. “He said he stood over the tomb of St. Peter at one point. He said it was so meaningful because he was welcomed into the heart of the Church in the heart of the Church.”

Beeley said the role her family has played in the conversions of her children's friends reminds her of a motto she learned in the Cursillo movement: “Have a friend, be a friend and bring a friend to Christ.”

“Thad and I don' see ourselves as the type of people who can get up and give a talk or go out on the lecture circuit,” she said. “We' just average people trying to live our faith, and it's bearing fruit by the grace of God.”

Judy Roberts writes from

Millbury, Ohio.