One Place NewsVATICAN CITY (RNS) — This 4th of July, on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence, the first American-born pope chose to spend the day in the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, a symbol of the immigrant influx polarizing the political debate in Europe.
The same day, Pope Leo XIV also issued a letter to the United States, reminding the country of its duty to uphold religious freedom and respect for human life, including the unborn and immigrants.
In the letter, Leo described religious freedom as among “the most cherished” of America’s founding principles, allowing people to worship freely, without coercion or fear. He also pointed to “the God-given dignity of every human life” as a guiding principle that “leads to recognizing the importance of safeguarding human life from its beginning at conception until natural death,” including the vulnerable and forgotten.
“Defending human life also includes welcoming, protecting and assisting immigrants, whose hopes, sacrifices and contribution have formed part of the history of this country from its very beginning,” Leo wrote.
The pope recognized the role that immigrants have had in shaping the U.S., writing, “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 and President Donald Trump have been at odds over the questions of immigration and war. In October, the pope criticized the “inhuman” treatment of immigrants in his home country and six months later warned that war “is never blessed by God,” adding that America’s preemptive attack on Iran did not qualify as “just war” according to Catholic teaching.
The pope said this year’s anniversary is not just a cause for celebration, but also an opportunity to reflect on the responsibilities that American citizens bear to one another and to future generations. “We need one another, and we need to work together in unity to confront the challenges that the world is facing today,” he said.
Leo’s words echoed many of the themes he addressed in his live video remarks to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Friday (July 3).
While in Lampedusa, the pope visited a cemetery where many immigrants — including children — who did not survive the deadly Mediterranean crossing from Africa are buried. He also met with migrant families and charity workers there before visiting the port named after his predecessor Pope Francis.
Francis chose Lampedusa as his first papal trip on July 8, 2013, announcing to the world that safeguarding immigrants would become a key concern of his papacy. From that spot, Francis first called out what he described as “the globalization of indifference.”
Standing before 4,000 people at the open field “arena” in Lampedusa, Leo celebrated Mass and picked up the torch of his predecessor, launching a message meant to be heard across Europe and in the United States: to act as neighbors to the global community.
“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,” the pope said in his homily drawing from the story of the good Samaritan. “This is the heart of the Gospel parable: we become neighbors by acting as neighbors,” he said.
Vice President JD Vance clashed with Catholic leaders in 2025 over the question of who should be considered a neighbor. Citing the Catholic concept of “ordo amoris,” or the order of love, Vance argued that a person’s first duties are, in order: to family, neighbors, community and fellow national citizens before the rest of the world. Pope Francis later pushed back on that interpretation in a letter to U.S. bishops, writing that the “true ordo amoris” is found in the parable of the good Samaritan and in a love open to all, without exception.
Leo pointed to indifference and corruption, an economy that generates poverty and exclusion, and the criminal networks that profit from human trafficking as examples of the tendency to ignore and “pass by” the suffering of others.
In this context, Leo once again spoke about how “religious affiliation must never become a reason for discrimination.” He appealed to Catholics to draw inspiration from popes, prophets and martyrs to “give spiritual, cultural, legal, political and economic expression to the civilization of love,” in light of the suffering that exists in the world.
He also reminded Europe of its potential to rise to “the momentous challenge that the phenomenon of migration poses,” by building institutional frameworks and relief efforts to receive, protect and support migrants while also assist developing countries so people are not forced to migrate.
The pope concluded his homily by asking for Our Lady of Safe Harbor, one of the titles of the Virgin Mary, to encourage people and give them strength despite hardship. He then left Lampedusa and retuned to the Vatican.
