Baltimore Faith Leaders To Meet With Pope Francis

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- A spiritual journey to help a city heal. Faith leaders from across Baltimore are headed to Rome on Monday for an audience with Pope Francis.

The extraordinary meeting comes in the wake of unrest following the death of Freddie Gray.

Mary Bubala reports.

Images of the unrest are seared into our minds, but faith leaders say it's the damage you can't see that hurts the most.

The soul of Baltimore City--crushed by the death of Freddie Gray and what came after.

Now the spiritual leader of 1 billion Catholics worldwide hopes to help our city heal by blessing the work of an interfaith group of religious leaders from Baltimore.

Pope Francis will meet them personally at the Vatican next week.

Led by Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, the diverse group includes Rabbi Steven Fink, Reverend Frank Reid, Imam Earl El-Amin and Reverend Alvin Hathaway, among others.

Hathaway is pastor at Union Baptist Church on Druid Hill Avenue in Baltimore City.

"Our location right at Druid Hill and Dolphin was the third stop of the fateful Freddie Gray van ride," said Hathaway.

Reverend Hathaway says an audience with Pope Francis should set the tone of the work needed to be done when they return.

"We should have a tone of mercy, we should have a sense of atonement, we should have a sense that we are all people together and united and connected together, and that because of that connection, we should, one, not only look out for each other, but two, we should empower each other," he said.

This will be the second pope Baltimore Imam Earl El-Amin will meet as part of an interfaith group.

"The Koran says that from one soul he's created us," said El-Amin, Muslim Community Cultural Center of Baltimore. "And so we are one Baltimore, and that one Baltimore is very important."

So important, Pope Francis is praying for us.

The interfaith group from Baltimore heads to Rome on Monday. They will meet his holiness Pope Francis on Wednesday, March 2 and return the next day.

The interfaith group will stay inside the Vatican at the Casa Santa Marta, where Pope Francis resides.