Pope Leo XIV — history’s first U.S.-born pope — chose to spend America’s 250th Independence Day anniversary not celebrating freedom at home, but praying for illegal migrants at Europe’s busiest landing zone.
While patriots across the United States marked the Declaration of Independence with rallies and fireworks, Leo flew to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa to honor tens of thousands who have died trying to reach Europe illegally.
The tiny island, a treeless strip of rock closer to Africa than the Italian mainland, is the main port of entry into Europe for hundreds of thousands of migrants smuggled from Libya or Tunisia by human traffickers.
“This is a place where gestures speak louder than words. But for gestures to be human, they need a heart.”
Leo walked alone onto jagged jetty rocks, the wind whipping his cassock and blowing off his skullcap as he stared out to sea. He then blessed a plaque dedicating the dock to Pope Francis, who visited in 2013.
In making the visit on the Fourth of July, Leo sent a symbolic message to the Trump administration — which he has openly sparred with over border enforcement — about what he calls the Christian obligation to welcome migrants.
In a letter to Americans released the same day, Leo insisted that protecting human life means “welcoming, protecting and assisting immigrants, whose hopes, sacrifices and contribution have formed part of the history of this country from its very beginning.”
“To receive them with compassion and generosity is not only an act of charity, but also a recognition of the dignity that belongs to every human person,” Leo wrote.
The visit follows Leo’s recent trip to Spain’s Canary Islands — another European migration hot spot — where he shamed leaders who turn migrants away.
During his homily, Leo thanked Lampedusa residents for the “miracle of compassion” they have shown and urged Europe to assume its responsibility.
“Before any intellectual consideration or ideological conviction, the encounter with those who lie before us, stripped of everything, calls us to be close to them.”
Leo urged European leaders to address migration with long-term strategies to receive, protect, support and integrate migrants while developing their home countries so no one is forced to migrate.
The number of migrants arriving in Italy so far this year is significantly lower than in recent years. Italy’s Interior Ministry reported 14,464 arrivals as of Friday compared with 30,598 in the same period last year and 26,202 in 2024.
Still, the International Organization of Migration has recorded more than 35,000 missing migrants in the Mediterranean since 2014, though the actual number is believed far higher.
Leo has strongly emphasized migrant dignity amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation program in his native Chicago. Last month, he warned people smugglers they will face God’s wrath for exploiting migrants’ desperation.
After arriving by plane, Leo paid homage to the dead at the island’s migrant cemetery, laying a wreath of yellow and white flowers on graves marked by simple crosses made from splintered wood of shipwrecked boats.
Tareke Brhane, a migrant from Eritrea and president of the October 3rd Committee — a nonprofit founded by relatives of victims of a 2013 shipwreck that left 368 people dead — called the gesture a “strong message” of solidarity.
“It is a strong sign for our battle with Italy and with Europe in order to register the deaths, because as of today we still do not have a registry (of those deceased),” Brhane told the Associated Press.
Leo followed in the footsteps of Francis, who made the plight of migrants and refugees a priority of his pontificate. For the Catholic Church, welcoming people fleeing hardship is part of the Gospel-mandated call to “welcome the stranger.”
Francis traveled to Lampedusa in July 2013 on his first trip outside Rome after his election, tossing a wreath into the sea in memory of migrants who had died and denouncing the “globalization of indifference.”
Salvatore Sortino, the International Organization of Migration’s head of mission for Italy and Malta, said despite the decrease in arrivals, the number of dead had increased proportionally.
“That speaks about the vulnerability that remains,” Sortino said. “So the visit of the pope here, where all this happens, I think is a very important reminder of that element.”
Salvini Questions How Many Terrorists Have Come Through Lampedusa After Nice Church Attack https://t.co/TGQ7ZdwqDj
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 1, 2020
Over 2,500 Migrants Have Drowned or Disappeared in Mediterranean Sea This Year, U.N. Reportshttps://t.co/FyDDF8Hojt
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 1, 2023
