Pope’s July 4 visit to migrant hotspot sends a veiled message to US leaders

(CNN) — Pope Leo XIV will mark the 250th anniversary of US independence by highlighting the plight of migrants, an area of continuing tension between the papacy and the Trump administration, on a visit to the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.

The treatment of migrants has been one of the main sources of tension between the first American pope and the Trump administration, with Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, this week describing the Vatican’s position on the topic as “troubling.”

Two high-profile leaders in the US Catholic church have told CNN that Pope Leo’s July 4 visit sends a message to the US about immigration, with Lampedusa a major entry point to Europe for those embarking across the Mediterranean. Many risk their lives in the process.

As a bishop in Peru, Leo XIV offered practical help to migrants fleeing Venezuela, and as pope, he has criticized the US administration’s crackdown on immigrants, describing their treatment as “inhuman.”

While in Lampedusa, the pope will lay a floral wreath on the tombs of migrants who died at sea, meet a group of migrants and celebrate an open-air Mass.

Leo will be following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Pope Francis, who visited Lampedusa soon after his election to highlight the plight of those dying in sea crossings on makeshift boats.

Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago and a close ally of the pope, said Leo’s visit will be “personal” given that, like many other Americans, the pope is from a family of immigrants. Cupich said Leo’s visit underlines the contribution made by new arrivals in countries.

“That’s sometimes forgotten in this moment in which we look at immigrants simply on the basis (that) they have violated a law or a statute in coming to a country without documents,” the cardinal, who is the grandson of Croatian immigrants, told CNN.

“He has said this before: God doesn’t look for passports and God looks at the dignity of every human being, and I think he’s going to lean into that and call us to our better angels.”

Meanwhile, Archbishop Ronald Hicks, who was chosen by Pope Leo to lead the Catholic New York archdiocese in December, said the five years he spent in El Salvador had made him more sensitive to new arrivals in the US, giving him “direct experience of knowing what it feels like to be on the other side.”

“He (Leo) is saying the United States has always been a country of immigrants. Everyone has come from somewhere at different times,” the archbishop told CNN ahead of the pope’s visit. He said Leo was raising questions all should consider: “How do we treat people when they come? How do we see each other as a brother and sister? How do we see them as someone to be welcomed instead of a problem right away? I think that’s all ingrained in his visit and in his message.”

Since his election, the pope has appointed several bishops who came to the US as migrants, including one who was smuggled in from El Salvador aged 18 in the back of a car.

Both Cupich and Hicks emphasized the importance of a sound legal system governing immigration. US bishops have become more outspoken on migration questions, releasing a rare joint statement at the end of last year.

Tensions between the administration and the papacy blew out into the open when President Donald Trump launched an extraordinary series of broadsides against the pope following Leo’s opposition to the war in Iran.

“I was sad, saddened to see that,” Cupich said of the attacks. “I think it was unprecedented.”

Cupich added that it left him “with a sense that the standards that we should hold” for leaders in the US “really were absent in this moment, and we should be able to expect better.”

The cardinal also said that the war in Iran could not be described as just, saying that “all of the measures that are part of the Just War theory were violated in that action.” Back in April, Vance said the pope needed to be “careful” when talking about theology and should remember “Just War” theory when talking about the war in Iran.

Cupich said that an “ongoing dialogue” was needed between the Catholic Church and Vance to say that “you cannot use the Just War theory in that instance” and that it shouldn’t be viewed as a “permission slip.”

Developed over centuries, the teaching is frequently used by military analysts as an ethical and moral justification for armed conflict. One of its primary architects is Saint Augustine of Hippo, the spiritual father of the Catholic religious order to which Leo belongs. In a recent encyclical, the pope said that Just War theory was now “outdated,” and the cardinal said the teaching needed to be “updated” given the weaponry used in today’s conflicts.

The day before he travels to Lampedusa, the pope will deliver a virtual address to a gathering at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The center has awarded Leo the 2026 Liberty Medal “for advancing religious liberty and freedom of conscience and expression.”

Cupich and Hicks stressed that the pope is offering moral leadership on the world stage.

“I think he listens more than he speaks, and yet when he does, there’s a sense of fortitude, a sense of strength, and a sense of courageous ‘leading us somewhere’,” Hicks explained.

Cupich said fellow cardinals, who recently took part in a meeting with the 70-year-old pope in the Vatican, are delighted that he has “stepped onto the global stage” quickly and is speaking about issues such as immigration, ecology and peace.

“He’s not going to be afraid of opposition. He’s going to do what he’s called to do in his ministry,” Cupich said of Leo. “He has the luxury of playing the long game… He’s fairly young.”

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