Chicago-area Catholics meet with Pope Leo in Rome

You might remember, we talked about that group of local Catholics traveling to Rome to see Pope Leo. Now, this is the same group that fought to bring communion to migrants held by ICE at the Bridgeview Detention Facility, the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership. Now they've had their visit, and some of them actually spoke with the pope. So we gotta hear all about it. We are joined by Abigail Ortiz-Valles and Deacon Javier Pineda. Thank you so much for joining us today. you for the invitation. Welcome back home. What was it like to just be standing there in front of the Pope? How did that conversation go? Wow, it was amazing. I just feel like we got a lot of emotions. It was so powerful. He knows what has happened here. He, in the end, When I finished to present the gift to him, he told us, keep doing the good work, and it was so inspirational for us. Yeah, we're seeing some photos here on the screen. Explain to us what we're seeing here in these pictures. It is the coalition. We were so blessed. Our chief, Paul Maldonado, came to us and he was very supportive. We are a coalition with a lot of members involved. I'm Laius Calabrianian. He is the deacon. We have person for different universities like Loyola, DePaul. This is a huge coalition. Integrate everybody to fight for the rights of brothers and sisters, our immigrants like us. Yeah, you guys traveled thousands of miles to go see him. What was the message that you really wanted to make sure he heard from you? He wanted, well, first of all, being a Chicagoan, he was very, very happy to see us. As soon as he came to us, he recognized some of the faces, so he was very happy to see us. He is very interested in hearing what is happening in his own home city in Chicago, and he wants to know how the church is supporting our detainees at Broadview Detention Center. And we simply shared our experiences with him. It's why we bring a gift with photos of what we are doing like mission. We present a gift with photos and notes of some members working hard and notes from our brothers and sisters that came. And they only request the prayers for themselves and for their family. It's so powerful how they, in that moment, they are very vulnerable. They still have faith, and they know somebody is there for them. Every time we visit the center of the detention of Broadview, we, like volunteers, recognize Jesus through them and the passion of Jesus through all this process. but we are together and we pray and we have faith everything will be better what was his reaction to hearing what's going on here in chicago obviously with such a deep connection to this city he knows we are here doing what where is in the gospel love passion and support independently of our religions because we the coalition is involved person with different religions because the most important part is support and bring pastoral care to them and deacon I'll ask you this one do you think that this meeting could change something here I think so for us it it gives us the support that we need to continue doing what we're doing uh the pope expressed his uh joy that the church is responding to the needs of of the people who are suffering and suffering is really uh not not it doesn't encompass the whole experience of what what we actually get to see every week that we go we see people in in the hardest moment of their life that's what they are being separated from their family we're talking about fathers who are waiting for them for their sons to be born in four or five days that they will not see. We're talking about a Vietnamese mother who is so afraid of going to Vietnam and leaving her 30-year-old daughter here in the States all by herself. We're talking about men crying for many reasons, but one is simply, my son cannot go to sleep without me and he's crying and it's just unbelievable moments of true suffering uh a sacrifice that is being perpetrated and of course we as people of faith we connect this with the sacrifice of of Jesus who unjustly was sacrificed himself so when you guys got back here back home from Rome Did you feel like you had done what you had gone out to accomplish? Or do you feel like now, since you got home, your work is just getting started? Exactly. What did you say is the correct goal. This is the beginning. This encourages us, encourages the other people to hear this story and read the news. They encourage us to speak up. We have rights. In this country, it's amazing because Joe asked, we have to. And I don't want to let you guys go without asking you about this. Obviously, we're seeing the Pope here in these pictures, and his health has been a huge, huge topic back here at home and around the world. Really, he looks good in these pictures. He actually, if we did not know what had happened before, we would never believe that he had gone through that experience. He looked completely healthy, maybe a little thin, but otherwise he was just all over the place. So we're very thankful to God for regaining his health. And we are still praying for his recovery because he showed independently he is passing through this process of cancer. He is there for us. He listens to us. He prays for us. Abigail Ortiz-Valles and Deacon Javier Pineda, thank you so much for joining us on The Loop today to tell us about your experience. Thank you for inviting us. Of course.