ope Leo XIV waves to the faithful at the end of a mass at Beirut's waterfront on December 2, 2025. Tens of thousands of people gathered at Beirut's waterfront as Pope Leo XIV held mass in the morning of December 2, the highlight of the Catholic leader's visit to the capital. Credit - Giuseppe CACACE—AFP or Licensors
Pope Leo XIV will spend July 4 visiting a Mediterranean island known for migrant crossings into Europe.
The Vatican announced this week that thefirst American leaderof the Catholic Church will visit Lampedusa, a small Italian island that has for years served as a gateway for migrants and refugees traveling to Europe from Africa and the Middle East.
The island is a stop on one of the deadliest migration routes in the world, and migrants who arrive there have often made a perilous journey across the sea.
Pope Leo expressed a desire to visit Lampedusa in avideo messagesent to volunteers there last year, in which he said they "have shown … the smile and the attention of a human face to people who have survived in a desperate journey of hope."
Read More:Pope Leo Condemns 'Diplomacy Based on Force' as Trump Threatens Further Military Actions
His predecessor, Pope Francis, celebrated Mass on the island in 2013 on an altar made of shipwrecked migrant boats, throwing a wreath into the ocean in honor of migrants who lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea.
The Vatican announced earlier this month that Pope Leo would not be visiting the U.S.this year, after Vice President J.D. Vance personally delivered an invitation from President Donald Trump during a visit to the Vatican in May last year.
Back home, Trump haspromisedto give the U.S. "the most spectacular birthday party the world has ever seen" this year, with a slate of programming called "Freedom 250." Among the events rumored so far are an Ultimate Fighting Championship bout, an IndyCar street race through Washington, D.C., and a four-day athletic event featuring high school athletes.
Pope Leo's visit to Lampedusa follows a year of tensions between the Vatican and the Trump Administration over the President's sweeping immigration crackdown in the U.S., which Pope Leo has spoken out against on several occasions.
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Before he became Pope, then-Cardinal Robert Prevost sharedseveral posts critical of both Vanceand Trump's policies.
In his first public address, he announced his commitment to the dignity of migrants and claimed that the issue was personal to him and his own story as a "descendant of immigrants, who in turn chose to emigrate."
"In a world darkened by war and injustice, even when all seems lost, migrants and refugees stand as messengers of hope," Pope Leo then wrotein a letteron the World Day of Migrants and Refugees last year.
In September, he was more direct in his criticism of the Trump Administration's immigration policy by name, questioning whether the poor treatment of immigrants was in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church.
"Someone who says I am against abortion but I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don't know if that's pro-life," he told journalists in September outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo.
He also spoke out in support of migrants again when hishometown city of Chicago, Illinois, became the focus of Trump's crackdown inOctober 2025.
"You stand with me and I stand with you, and the church will continue to accompany and stand with migrants," Pope Leoreportedlysaid after a meeting with a group of visiting American Bishops and Catholic leaders in October, who raised concerns about the deportation campaign.
In December, he replaced New York Archbishop, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, a friend of President Trump, withpro-migrantsuccessor Bishop Ronald Hicks. In November, Hicks released astatementsupporting amessagefrom the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) that expressed its opposition to "the indiscriminate mass deportation of people" in the United States.
The decision also comes just days after Pope Leo declined an invitation to join Trump's Board of Peace, a U.S.-led initiative launched by the president with the ostensible aim of rebuilding Gaza and solving other conflicts.
A statement from the Vatican cited "certain critical issues" as a reason for the refusal. "One concern," Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin toldVatican News, "is that at the international level it should above all be the U.N. that manages these crisis situations."
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