Catholic Social Justice at Heart of Upcoming Vatican Visit for Sr. Christin Tomy, Local Delegation
Sr. Christin Tomy, OP, will join a delegation to the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Leo XIV and other Vatican officials this month.
With the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL), Tomy and other clergy are expected to attend Pope Leo’s general audience on Oct. 28 and meet with the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the Vatican office that oversees the Church's work on social justice, including migration, on Oct. 27.
Tomy and other local clergy have been ministering to immigrants detained at the ICE facility in Broadview, work that is organized through CSPL.
“Every time we go, I feel just a profound mix of gratitude and heartbreak to be able to remind them that they’re not forgotten,” Tomy, a member of the CSPL Religious Council, said in a news release. “The fact that CSPL was invited to bring a delegation [to the Vatican] says to me that our church at its most global levels of governance sees and cares about what’s happening to each person that we visit in Broadview. It really is yet another way to raise up the voices and the experiences of the people that we’ve encountered.”
"The pilgrimage to Rome is an opportunity to have an encounter with Pope Leo, a beloved Chicagoan, to thank him, and to ask for his ongoing prayers and encouragement,” added CSPL Executive Director Michael N. Okińczyc-Cruz. “The people we are ministering to at the Broadview ICE detention facility are heartbroken mothers and fathers, grandparents and young people who are desperate to remain connected to their loved ones, and that is a message we want to share personally with Pope Leo.”
Read the full CSPL news release here.