Lenten Campaign 2025
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Peter Lehtonen is one of only a few thousand Catholics in Finland – and he has devoted his life to spreading the Word of God in the unlikeliest of places.
Lehtonen converted to Catholicism 13 years ago, and his family lives about 120 kilometers (about 75 miles) from the nearest Catholic church. A priest visits his city for Mass once a month.
“I miss Jesus in the Eucharist very much, and I feel the Holy Spirit compels me to do something to stay active in the faith,” he told Aleteia.
Inspired by the works of St. Josemaria Escriva, Lehtonen decided to sanctify his life in the ways that he was able to.
“I remember asking for St. Josemaria’s intercession in this heartbreaking situation, where there is no physical Catholic community nearby and no chance to attend Mass and receive the sacraments regularly,” he said. “I asked that I may someday bear witness to Christ, despite these difficulties.”
The answer, said Lehtonen, came to him. A reassurance that one day, he would.
“Liittle by little, there came a gift of the Holy Spirit; a mobilization of courage,” he said.
An actor, Lehtonen wears his faith on his sleeve, and prays openly and publicly.
“You see, it's not about preaching. It's about showing people that it's perfectly okay and normal to show that you're a Christian and living a Christian life. In my country, and in the world, as it is today, often without hope, without truth, adrift and secularized, this is important and even vitally mandatory,” he said.
But apart from his job, Lehtonen has another passion: sim racing and gaming. And he found a way to evangelize his faith in that realm as well.
"Sim" refers to simulation and is a descriptor for video games that simulate something such as flying an aircraft or playing a sport.
Sharing real faith in an online game
“I’m an old school player,” said Lehtonen. “I remember playing the very first Formula 1 simulation game.”
Today, Lehtonen eschews the expensive, fancy setups used by professional sim racers, and instead sticks to Monoposto, a mobile game played on a smartphone.
“You can devote, if you have the money, the majority of your waking life to sim racing, and again for me, as a Catholic, that's going too far,” he said.
The mobile game, he said, “is like going back in time playing the early simulators – only it’s better. You can race whole F1 seasons, race against other players online, design your own team with car liveries and driving suits. It's realistic, though not perfectly so, but most importantly it's tons of fun.”
He also finds parallels with his faith.
“In the Monoposto game, you are able to race against the other users for two laps on a randomly selected circuit. It's the only way to practice driving,” he said.
But if a user decides to quit the race before it is over, they lose experience points and coins within the game.
“There are some great Christian didactics in this: never give up, stick around, keep pushing and see what happens,” he said.
To live out his Catholic faith in the virtual world of the game, Lehtonen races under the flag of the Holy See – and he’s the only person in the game to do so. He also designed his car’s livery – its design and color scheme – to further promote Catholicism.
“I'm devoted to the Holy Face, so at first I made a nice livery with Jesus' face prominently visible on the car,” he said. He later added pictures of Pope Francis, the papal tiara, and the keys of St. Peter to the design.
Then, said Lehtonen, he began to notice other users of the game using his livery for their own cars.
But in the latest update, he made a new livery for his car, featuring the Papal Swiss Army flag along with other Catholic symbols.
"Now, not a day goes by that I don't see my Catholic F1 livery on at least two or three players every day," he said.
He believes it is one of, if not the, most popular user-made livery in the game.
“It's a fun blessing and a great gift: I'm pretty sure most don't know that it is a Christian livery they are sporting on their cars,” said Lehtonen.
“But no matter, the infectious beauty of the Catholic Faith has once again been made apparent in a place you least expected.”
