An atheist for 35 years, she reencountered God at the tomb of St. John Paul II

ACI Prensa Staff, Oct 22, 2024 / 16:15 pm (CNA).

Belén Perales, a 60-year-old Spanish woman, lived for 35 years as an atheist, turning away from the Catholic faith in her teens after a series of traumatic experiences.

However, her life changed dramatically on a visit to the tomb of St. John Paul II in the Vatican, where, according to her, she had a profound revelation that brought her back home.

A life marked by pain and rebellion

Perales was born into a Catholic family, the eldest of four siblings, but from a young age she felt a baseless but deep sense of abandonment. “I always had a feeling that nobody loved me,” she confessed in an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

Constant moving from one city to another due to her father’s work fueled her insecurities, creating a deep emotional wound. “I developed a kind of wound of [feeling] abandoned,” she recalled, and although moving around made her more adaptable, it also fueled her resentment.

Belén Perales with her parents and sisters. Credit: Photo courtesy of Belén Perales

Her faith began to falter in her teens after being abused during a stay at a boarding school. This episode marked a breaking point in her relationship with God and her mother. “I left school very angry at the world … that summer I stopped believing in God,” Perales recounted. From that moment on, she began to distance herself from the Church and the faith she had known as a child.

Tumultuous trajectory

For the next 35 years, Perales lived in the midst of confusion, searching for peace in failed relationships and professional success that she could never find. She married several times and suffered deception and abuse in her relationships.

“My first husband scammed me… when I went to get a divorce, it turned out that I wasn’t even married; he was a professional scammer who had deceived me,” she recalled with resignation.

“After what happened with that man, my first husband, I went from bad to worse. I met the father of my oldest daughter; in short, it was a very tortuous relationship. It was seven very hard years. I had a terrible time. I managed to get out of that house with my daughter and we started from scratch again. I was ruined again,” she recalled.

In 1996, when the internet was just taking off, she bought a kit and decided to set up her own online business. She began selling through that platform and, to her surprise, the project was a huge success. From that moment on, she began to generate significant income thanks to her entrepreneurial initiative in the digital world. 

Despite having a successful career in business, her personal life was still a mess. “I went on to other boyfriends… I got married again, but it went wrong just the same.”

“I went to live with another person who had addictions that I didn’t know about; he was a psychiatrist and a drug addict. Then I got married again, in the Church this time. And it went wrong just the same because that person had problems, and so did I. I had two daughters, my two little daughters with that person. So I was left alone with my daughters, the two little ones,” she said.

Belén Perales with her three daughters. Credit: Photo courtesy of Belén Perales

During these years, her life was marked by hopelessness and she lived completely far from faith. “I was an atheist; I didn’t believe in God, nothing, zero,” she stated categorically.

Sudden, unexpected reencounter with God

Everything changed in the summer of 2012 during a trip to Rome with her daughters. Although her initial intention was to visit the Roman Colosseum, her daughter Gabriela insisted on visiting the Vatican.

“I wanted to go to the Colosseum, but my daughter wanted to go to the Vatican. In the end, I gave in,” she said. What happened inside St. Peter’s Basilica changed her life forever.

“When we entered the Vatican, I was angry. I thought: ‘What are we doing here? How horrible!’” While taking photos of her daughters, Perales began to feel something inexplicable: “Suddenly, I began to feel something physical, not spiritual. Something that suddenly entered… and I automatically realized that God exists, and that if I died, I would go to hell.”

The impact was so great that she began to cry uncontrollably. “My eyes were pouring out tears as if they were two open faucets,” she recalled.

In front of the tomb of St. John Paul II, she felt that she was outside the Church, separated from her “mother,” as she calls the Catholic Church, and that she had rejected God for all those years. “I felt the pain of being outside the Church, realizing that God existed and that I had rejected him.”

“I felt … that he wasn’t a lie, and that I had rejected him. My soul was dirty, full of sins. My sins were running through my mind,” she said.

When she saw the tomb of St. John Paul II, she suddenly said: “Girls, let’s pray.” Then she knelt on the third pew on the left as her tears continued to fall. “My youngest daughter took out tissues and wiped my face. I wanted to pray, but I couldn’t even remember the Lord’s Prayer, because I hadn’t prayed for 35 years. I was 48 years old and hadn’t prayed since I was 13,” she explained to ACI Prensa.

Tomb of St. John Paul II in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Credit: Juan Andrés Muñoz/ACI Prensa

When she left the place, Perales thought to herself: “I’ve gone crazy. This is the result of being alone with my daughters and tired.”

Return home

After that experience, she returned to Madrid, but the process of returning to the faith was not easy. She still felt estranged from the Church and thought she could not be accepted again.

“I was still stubborn, thinking that I couldn’t return to the Church, that I was excommunicated,” she related. For a year, she attended Mass on Sundays, but she didn’t dare go to confession. “I thought: ‘I better not go to confession, because they’re going to throw me out of here.’”

Finally, one day, she felt an inner call. “I heard God telling me from within: ‘What are you waiting for?’” That was the sign she needed to take the step. “I went down to the parish, left my daughters in a pew, and went into the first confessional I saw.”

There she found a young priest who welcomed her with joy. “I told him: ‘Look, my name is Belén, I have done everything except steal and kill.’ And he answered me: ‘Hallelujah, today there is a celebration in heaven.’”

The priest had with him a picture of the prodigal son and explained to her: “Right now God is embracing you.”

That confession was the beginning of her reconciliation with God and with the Catholic Church. “I didn’t know the mercy of God. When I returned to the Church, it was like an embrace that I had never felt before,” she shared.

A life of evangelization

Since then, Perales has dedicated her life to evangelizing and sharing her story with those around her. “I told Jesus: ‘From now on, I am your marketing department. Wherever I go, I will take you with me.’”

And so she has. Over the years, she has taken several friends to the confessional and handed out rosaries to those she meets along the way.

“My wounds have been healed by adoration and sacraments. I am a fan of confession,” she said with a smile.

Belén Perales. Credit: Photo courtesy of Belén Perales

In addition, Perales founded the channel “El Rosario de las 11” (“The Rosary at 11 p.m.”) on YouTube, with which she streams praying the holy rosary every night and shares conversion stories, like hers. As she told ACI Prensa, “the channel has borne many fruits, from endless conversions to [guys] who have decided to go to seminary to become priests, vocations… in short, a bit of everything.”

What surprises her most, although she realizes that it shouldn’t, is the number of miracles and conversions that have occurred thanks to the channel. Reflecting on this fact, she quoted Jesus: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” For Perales, these events are proof that Jesus is still alive today.

Expressing her full commitment to the project, she said she has promised the Virgin and Jesus that she will be running the channel “until the last day of her life, or until my strength fails me.”

“I want to please my mother, the Virgin, who asks us to pray the rosary. I am obeying. Also, many people on the internet don’t know God, but if they did, they would fall in love with Jesus as I have,” she commented.

“YouTube allows people, even without looking for God, to meet him in an unexpected way. I am excited to know that my videos can reach those who are far away, those who most need this message of hope and love that Jesus gives us,” she said.

Today, Perales lives a life full of faith, grateful for having found God again after so many years of darkness. “Jesus rescued me when I least expected it, and now I want everyone to know that he is there, waiting for us,” she concluded.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.