Well, actually, he’s just going to be meeting the Pope during World Youth Day festivities — but his story is a compelling one of crime and conversion:

A FORMER hitman will share the stage with Pope Benedict XVI at World Youth Day in Sydney – but there is no need to be alarmed.

John Pridmore, 44, who spent almost 20 years as a gangster in London’s underworld, has turned his life around and found God.

The author of A Gangster’s Guide to God will speak about his conversion experience at a Saturday evening vigil attended by the Pope at Randwick Racecourse on July 19 and a concert the night before.

Pridmore, who is an imposing 195cm tall, was an enforcer in London’s East and West End and led a life involving stabbings, guns, vicious criminal gangs and major drug deals.

He said his life of crime started after his parents divorced when he was 10.

“I felt like the ones who loved me most had hurt me the most,” he said. “So I made an unconcious decision not to love any more. My only qualification in life was stealing, so that’s what I did. By 15 I was in a detention centre. At 19 I was in prison again, and because the way I dealt with my pain was with anger, I was always fighting. They put me on 23-hour solitary confinement and I came out of there even more angry and bitter. I started bouncing round the east end and west end of London. I liked fighting so I thought I might as well get paid for it. I met some guys who seemed to have everything and I started to work for them.

Before long I found myself working with them instead of for them. These were the guys who ran most of the organised crime in London. To my shame I was involved in massive drug deals, protection rackets and vicious crime of all sorts,” he said.

Pridmore was also heavily into drugs, taking crack, cocaine and other illegal substances on a daily basis.

“I had what I thought was everything. Money, power, girls, drugs, the lot. But yet there was something missing,” he said.

The turning point for Pridmore was one time when he thought he had killed a man. He awoke from a dream soon afterwards and realised he had to change his life. “I looked at myself and thought what have I become.”

He decided to attend a Catholic retreat and while there found a new purpose in life.

For the first time he confessed his sins to a priest and received Holy Communion.