Leo XIV will visit on July 4, as announced by the Holy See, which has announced an intense travel agenda for the Pope within Italy for the coming months. It also includes Pompeii, Naples, Acerra, Pavia, Assisi and Rimini. Lampedusa is undoubtedly the most relevant appointment, a choice loaded with meaning. This small island halfway between Tunisia and Sicily is the point of greatest arrival of immigrants by sea to Italy, which precisely with the beginning of summer reaches its peak. In July 2025, 6,487 people arrived in Italy from Libya and Tunisia, the majority to Lampedusa, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior. Throughout the year there were 66,296, almost the same as the previous year.
The visit of Robert Prevost, of American and Peruvian nationality, is known while President Donald Trump persecutes foreigners in the United States. It will arrive as soon as it comes into force, next June. And just when the Government of the far-right Giorgia Meloni will be there, they are making rescues in the Mediterranean. The Italian Executive plans to have the deportations of migrants to Albania underway again since spring.
The island is a symbol of shipwreck tragedies in the Mediterranean, as one of the worst took place, with 368 dead and at least 20 missing. That disaster led Italy and the EU to deploy the Mare Nostrum rescue operation, although it only lasted a year and gave way to a more restrictive European policy with the border control agency Frontex, which continues to this day.
Leo XIV’s trip to the island is a clear sign of continuity with his predecessor, Francis, who four months after being elected in 2013, also in the month of July. There he made a harsh speech against the “globalization of indifference.”
The new Pope, elected in May of last year, has only made one international trip so far, last November to Türkiye and Lebanon. For this year he has only confirmed his intention to go to Algeria, following in the footsteps of Saint Augustine, and to other African countries, yet to be determined, on the same trip.
The Vatican is also considering a visit by the Pontiff to Spain, perhaps in June, to Madrid, Barcelona and the Canary Islands, although it has not yet been officially confirmed. In Spain there are almost daily statements that take it for granted, as is happening in other countries, and the pressure on the Holy See in this regard is enormous, but the truth is that until there is an official announcement it will not be true.
Of course, the Vatican has already ruled out a visit by Leo XIV to the United States in 2026, another sign of Trump’s distancing. Other trips by air are to Argentina, the homeland of his predecessor but where Francisco never went, and Peru, a country where Prevost lived for many years and of which he has nationality. It is not yet clear if it would be during the same visit and with other neighboring countries.
