A phone call from Pope Francis changed the life of a 35 year-old woman who wrote to him out of desperation after finding out that she was pregnant by a married man – but she never expected the reply she received!

The Catholic Herald is reporting that Anna Romano of Arezzo, Italy got the surprise of her life while on vacation last month. Her cell phone began to ring with a Rome number and as soon as she answered and heard the voice on the other end, she knew it was Pope Francis.

“I was just so surprised that he had telephoned me,” she told the Herald. “He said that he had read my letter and he wanted to speak to me personally about it and reassure me that someone was worried about me.”

She had written to the pope earlier this summer when she discovered she was pregnant by someone who she described as the man of her dreams. At least he was until she told him she was pregnant and he admitted that he was already married and had a child. Instead of being what she hoped would be one of the happiest moments of her life, she was told he didn’t want the child and to have an abortion.

Romano responded by telling him that she would not have an abortion and to get out of her life. Left in a desperate and anguished state, she wrote a letter to Pope Francis because she felt she had “no one else to turn to, after being left humiliated and betrayed”.

She told him that she had never been lucky with men, had married young and when that didn’t work out, got a divorce. And now she was pregnant by a man who was married to someone else!

As the Herald explains, she put the letter in an envelope addressed simply to Pope Francis, the Vatican, and never expected to get a reply.

“I would never have imagined that the Pope would pick up a telephone and call me and speak to me as if I was a dear friend,” Romano said. “He reassured me and said a child was a gift from God, a sign of Divine Providence and that I would never be left alone. He said that as Christians we should never be afraid.”

She continued: “He told me I had been very brave and strong for my unborn child. I told him that I wanted to baptize the baby when it was born but I was afraid as I was divorced and a single mother but he said he would be my spiritual father and he would baptize my baby. I’m not sure if he will, I feel as if I am dreaming but if he did baptize my baby it would be something else, that telephone call has changed my life.”

She’s telling her story with the hopes of being an example for other women “who feel they may be distant from the Church simply because they have chosen the wrong man, they are divorced or they are with men who are not worthy of being fathers. I don’t know the sex of the baby but if the Pope does baptize it and it’s a boy I have no doubt of his name – Francis.”

When asked about the call, a Vatican spokesman could only admit that he knew nothing about it.

“The Pope doesn’t tell us when he makes these calls,” the spokesman said. “He just does them and then we find out about them later.”

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