Pope Francis told of a story he had heard regarding a man, “a head of government” of the past who proclaimed himself an atheist.

He said “He had no religious sense in his heart,” but he remembered listening to his grandmother praying when he was a child. “At a difficult time in his life,” the Pope continued, “that memory came back to his heart and he began to pray with the words used by his grandmother.” There, the Pope said, “he found Jesus; prayer is a chain of life.”

Pope Francis
began his General Audience on Wednesday, Vatican, 27 May 2020