Pope Leo XIV will visit the southern Italian island of Lampedusa to highlight the plight of migrants, an area of ongoing tension between the Holy See and the Trump administration, and to commemorate the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence.
The treatment of immigration has been one of the main sources of tension between the first US pope and the Trump administration, with Vice President J.D. Vance, a Catholic, this week calling the Vatican’s position on the issue “alarming.”
Two prominent leaders of the U.S. Catholic Church told CNN that the Pope’s July 4 visit sends a message to the United States about immigration, with Lampedusa a major gateway to Europe for people crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Many people are risking their lives in the process.
As bishop of Peru, Pope Leo XIV provided practical aid to migrants fleeing Venezuela, and as pope he criticized the US government’s crackdown on immigration, calling the treatment of migrants “inhumane.”
While on Lampedusa, the pope will lay wreaths at the graves of migrants who died at sea, meet with groups of migrants and celebrate an open-air mass.
Leo will follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, Pope Francis, who visited Lampedusa shortly after his election and highlighted the plight of those dying across the sea in makeshift boats.
Cardinal Blas Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago and a close ally of the pope, said Leo’s visit would be “personal” given that the pope, like many Americans, comes from a family of immigrants. Cupich said Leo’s visit highlights the contributions made by each country’s new arrivals.
The cardinal, who is the grandson of Croatian immigrants, told CNN that “sometimes we forget that now that we look at immigrants simply on the basis of breaking laws and statutes by coming into the country without documents.”
“He’s said this before: God isn’t looking for a passport, he sees the dignity of every human being. And I think God leans into that and is trying to call us to our better angels.”
Meanwhile, Archbishop Ronald Hicks, who was chosen by the Pope in December to lead the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, said the five years he spent in El Salvador made him more sensitive to new arrivals in the United States and gave him “firsthand experience of what it’s like to be on the other side.”
“He (Leo) says the United States has always been a country of immigrants. Everyone came from somewhere at a different time,” the archbishop told CNN ahead of the pope’s visit. “When people come, how do we treat each other? How do we see each other as brothers and sisters? How do we see each other as people who are welcome and not just instant troublemakers? I think all of that is ingrained in his visit and his message,” he said.
Since his election, the pope has appointed several bishops who came to the United States as immigrants, including one who was smuggled from El Salvador in the back of a car at age 18.
Both Cupich and Hicks emphasized the importance of a sound legal system governing immigration. U.S. bishops have become more outspoken on immigration, issuing an unusual joint statement late last year.
Tensions between the administration and the Holy See have been exposed after President Donald Trump launched a series of unprecedented broadside attacks against the Pope in response to Leo’s opposition to the Iran war.
“It was sad to see that, it was sad,” Cupich said of the attack. “I think it was unprecedented.”
Cupich added that he got the feeling that “the standards that we should be held to” for U.S. leaders “are really lacking at this point. We should be able to expect better.”
The cardinal also said the war in Iran could not be called just, saying that “all the measures that are part of the theory of just war were violated in that action.” Vance said in April that the pope should be “careful” when talking about theology and keep the “just war” theory in mind when talking about the Iran war.
Cupich said there needs to be an “ongoing dialogue” between the Catholic Church and Vance to convey that “just war theory cannot be used in that case,” and that this should not be seen as a “licence.”
This teaching, developed over centuries, is frequently used by military analysts as an ethical and moral justification for armed conflict. One of its main architects is St. Augustine of Hippo, the spiritual father of the Catholic order to which Leo belongs. In a recent encyclical, the pope said the theory of just war was now “outdated” and the cardinal said its teachings needed to be “updated” in light of the weapons used in today’s conflicts.
The day before his trip to Lampedusa, the pope will deliver a virtual address at a gathering at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The center awarded Leo the 2026 Medal of Freedom for “promoting freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and expression.”
Cupich and Hicks emphasized the Pope’s moral leadership on the world stage.
“I think he listens more than he speaks, but yet when he speaks, there’s a sense of fortitude, a sense of strength, and a sense of courage that says, ‘He’s going to get us somewhere,'” Hicks explained.
Cupich said the cardinals who recently attended a meeting with the 70-year-old pontiff at the Vatican were pleased that he was rapidly “stepping onto the world stage” and speaking out on issues such as immigration, ecology and peace.
“He will not be afraid of opposition. He will do what is asked of him in his ministry,” Cupich said of Leo. “He can afford to play the long game…He’s pretty young.”
