I've never heard of Cora Louise Evans before. There isn't much information about her, but it looks like she might be the first ex-Mormon to become a Catholic saint. Maybe she can become the patron saint of ex-Mormonism?
By David Noyce
| Dec. 15, 2022, 6:09 a.m.
From Saint to saint
A former Latter-day Saint is on the path to becoming a Catholic saint.
Cora Louise Evans was born in 1904 in Ogden, according to the Catholic National Register, and married in the Salt Lake Temple before growing disillusioned with Mormonism.
“I was without a God and religion but had gained a very wonderful husband. As I looked at him and learned to love him more and more, I resolved to help find a God for him,” she once said. “...After 10 years of searching, we found the one true God in the Roman Catholic Church.”
She also found — and wrote about — profound visions (some dating to her childhood), the article notes, witnessing the Virgin Mary and many events in Christ’s life. California’s Diocese of Monterey says she also experienced “stigmata,” the Los Angeles Times reports, suffering unexplained wounds matching those Jesus endured during his crucifixion.
Evans, who died in 1957, recorded her encounters in “The Refugee From Heaven,” which is now among the thousands of pages of documents being studied after U.S bishops voted to see whether this Catholic mystic is worthy of beatification and canonization.
Fascinating story! The search for God is mostly about the seeker. People are capable of having that experience in all kinds of traditions. I don't know that this reflects a failure in Mormonism so much as her experience with Mormonism. There are so many born-in-the-faith Catholics who seem incapable of finding God there. It makes me think that the conversion experience is what is most powerful, and that belonging to and remaining in a community are somewhat like any longterm relationship. If you don't invest in it, or if you grow away from it, you will be dissatisfied and look for new fulfillment.
"He disturbs the laws of his country, he forces himself upon women, and he puts men to death without trial.” ~Otanes on the monarch, Herodotus Histories 3.80.
