Imagine marking US Independence Day not with fireworks, but with a wreath for migrants lost at sea. That’s exactly what Pope Leo XIV plans to do — and Washington is watching.

So, here’s the story making waves, as reported by cbinews.tv. Pope Leo XIV is set to spend July 4 — the 250th anniversary of US independence — on the Italian island of Lampedusa. And it’s not a coincidence. Lampedusa is one of Europe’s biggest arrival points for migrants crossing the Mediterranean, many of whom don’t survive the journey.

This visit lands right in the middle of ongoing tension between the Vatican and the Trump administration over immigration. Just this week, Vice President JD Vance, who’s Catholic himself, called the Vatican’s stance on migrants “troubling.”

Leo XIV isn’t new to this. Back when he was a bishop in Peru, he was hands-on helping Venezuelan migrants. Since becoming pope, he’s been blunt, calling the US crackdown on immigrants “inhuman.”

While on Lampedusa, he’ll lay a floral wreath at the tombs of migrants who died at sea, meet with migrant groups, and hold an open-air Mass. It’s a move that mirrors his predecessor, Pope Francis, who also went to Lampedusa early in his papacy to spotlight those dying on makeshift boats.

Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago and a close ally of the pope, reckons this trip is “personal” for Leo. Like loads of Americans, the pope comes from an immigrant family. Cupich told CNN that Leo’s visit is a reminder of what newcomers bring to a country.

“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,” Cupich said. “He has said this before: God doesn’t look for passports and God looks at the dignity of every human being.”

Archbishop Ronald Hicks, tapped by Pope Leo to lead the Catholic New York archdiocese in December, echoed that. He spent five years in El Salvador and says it showed him “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,” Hicks told CNN. “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?”

Now, both Cupich and Hicks did stress they back a sound legal system for immigration. US bishops have actually been louder on this lately, dropping a rare joint statement at the end of last year.

Tensions with the White House have been bubbling. President Donald Trump fired off a series of broadsides at the pope after Leo opposed the war in Iran.

And just before heading to Lampedusa, Leo will give a virtual address to a gathering at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He’s set to receive the 2026 Liberty Medal there “for advancing religious liberty and freedom of conscience and expression.”

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

Attribution: cbinews.tv

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