VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo XIV in July will visit the Italian island of Lampedusa, a landing point for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa, the Vatican announced om Thursday.<\/p>\n
The US pontiff has previously thanked the people of Lampedusa, which is just 145km off the coast of Tunisia, for the welcome they have given over the years to those who arrived, often on leaky, overcrowded boats.<\/p>\n
Leo has also repeatedly spoken out against measures to clamp down on illegal migration. <\/p>\n
He called the US administration\u2019s treatment of immigrants \u201cinhuman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leo will visit Lampedusa on July 4, as part of a program of visits within Italy this summer, which includes a trip to Pompeii on May 8, the anniversary of his election, the Vatican said.<\/p>\n
On May 23, he will meet pilgrims in the so-called \u201cLand of Fires\u201d in Campania, a southern Italian region blighted by toxic waste dumped by the mafia.<\/p>\n
Leo\u2019s predecessor, Francis, chose Lampedusa for his first official visit after becoming pontiff in July 2013.<\/p>\n
In a definitive speech of his papacy, Francis denounced what he called \u201cthe globalization of indifference,\u201d and the defense of migrants became a cornerstone of his papacy.<\/p>\n
Leo became the first US head of the world\u2019s 1.4 billion Catholics last May following Francis\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
In October, Leo said states had a right to protect their borders but a \u201cmoral obligation\u201d to provide refuge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the abuse of vulnerable migrants, we are witnessing, not the legitimate exercise of national sovereignty, but rather grave crimes committed or tolerated by the state,\u201d he said, according to a speech published by the Vatican.<\/p>\n
\u201cEver more inhuman measures are being adopted \u2014 even celebrated politically \u2014that treat these \u2018undesirables\u2019 as if they were garbage and not human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni\u2019s government has taken a tough line on irregular migration, restricting the activities of charity rescue boats and seeking to speed up returns of people who fail to qualify for asylum.<\/p>\n
Her ministers last week agreed on a new draft law that would allow the imposition of a \u201cnaval blockade\u201d to stop migrant boats from entering Italian waters.<\/p>\n
Almost 2,300 migrants have landed on Italy\u2019s shores so far this year, compared to 5,600 in the same period in 2025 and 4,200 in the same period in 2024.<\/p>\n
Yet many die trying to make the crossing, with at least 547 lives lost along Mediterranean routes so far this year, according to the UN\u2019s International Organization for Migration.<\/p>\n
Leo, who was born in Chicago and spent two decades as a missionary in Peru, has said he loves to travel. <\/p>\n
He spent many years on the road when he served two, six-year terms as the superior of his Augustinian religious order, which required him to visit Augustinian communities around the world.<\/p>\n
Pope Leo himself has said he hopes to visit his beloved Peru, as well as Argentina and Uruguay, trips that could happen toward the end of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo XIV in July will visit the Italian island of Lampedusa, a landing point for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa, the Vatican announced om Thursday. The US pontiff has previously thanked the people of Lampedusa, which is just 145km off the coast of Tunisia, for the welcome they have …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":94017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94018,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93998\/revisions\/94018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}