When Ashley Diaz and her family visited Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican, they didn’t go empty-handed.
Instead, they researched the perfect gift for the first American-born Pope: a crocheted version of the yellow sugary-sweet Peeps candy that comes in the shape of a baby chick — reportedly a favorite of Pope Leo.
Then they devised a plan to get it into his hands.
The “Operation Pope Peep” was a success and a video of the heartwarming exchange has gone viral.
Ashley Diaz’s video has more than 1.12 million views on Instagram and more than 400,000 on TikTok.
She said the best thing about the viral video is that it showcases Pope Leo’s humanity.
@_maryashh When you give the Pope a peep!! 🇻🇦 @NBC Chicago #catholic #popeleoxiv #catholicism #catholicchurch #catholicsoftiktok ♬ original sound - Ashley Díaz
Operation Pope Peep
Diaz, a recent college graduate who studied theology and is a lifelong Catholic, credited the “whole operation” to her sister.
They had seen a video of Pope Leo’s brother, John Prevost, saying that His Holiness’ “favorite candy on Earth” is Peeps.
Diaz asked a family friend, Juliet Guidry, an eighth grader from Georgia, to crochet a Peep.
“At first, when Ashley asked me to crochet a Peep, I was very confused,” Guidry told Georgia Bulletin. “I asked her why, and the second she said it was for the pope, I grabbed my crochet hook.”
Guidry added her own touch to the final product: a tiny miter for the Holy Father.
On Dec. 17, the Diaz family woke up at 4 a.m. after traveling the day prior, all so they could be at the front of the line during Pope Leo’s weekly general papal audience at the Vatican that Wednesday.
“I don’t know if we really thought that Pope Leo was going to get it,” said Diaz. But they knew they wanted to see him.
“My sister had been holding on to this Crusader Peep from the moment that we left the United States,” she said. This crocheted replica of the marshmallow chick Easter candy traveled with them through Finland, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Diaz and her two siblings stood against the barricade at St. Peter’s Square as the pope passed by on the popemobile before making his way toward them.
Ashley Diaz said she froze, wondering what to say. Her sister decided to yell, “Pope Leo, we got you a Peep! We got you this Peep,” as Diaz recalled.
“He looked over and said, ‘Oh, a giant Peep!’” but didn’t take it, nor did the guards, prompting the Diazes to go into a panic. Diaz’s sister yelled, “It’s for him!”
“Oh, it’s for me?” Pope Leo said as the guards passed him the gift. The pope posed with the crocheted Peep, the size of a football, and gave a thumbs-up.
A very special visit to the Vatican
Diaz had been to the Vatican a handful of times before but this particular visit felt surreal, watching an American pope who spoke the same language as her accept this special gift.
“Seeing him from afar, his tenderness — that’s the biggest thing that has impacted me,” she said.
Diaz left the Vatican feeling as if “the Lord was telling me this church is a place of encounter.”
She said she views the moment of joy as “a gift from the Lord,” adding that she could picture “heaven laughing with us.”
“The Lord’s just so intentional and Pope Leo really represented that,” Diaz said.
“Sometimes we forget that the person of Christ was human. … Christ himself laughed and danced and rejoiced in the things that were right, like maybe Scripture doesn’t really talk about, but he was human.”