Only about 80 miles from Tunisia, Lampedusa is a main gateway for Africans escaping poverty and violence to enter the continent of Europe.
Pope Leo XIV will follow in his predecessor Pope Francis’ footsteps with a visit to a major migrant landing point, the Italian island of Lampedusa, on July 4.
Continuing his summer of day trips in Italy, the first U.S.-born pope will spend the U.S. Independence Day greeting immigrants, celebrating Mass, and visiting the tombs of Africans who have died at sea while making the dangerous boat crossing to Europe.
Lampedusa, which is part of the Italian region of Sicily, is only about 80 miles from Tunisia and a main gateway for Africans escaping poverty and violence to enter the continent of Europe.
When Pope Francis traveled to Lampedusa on July 8, 2013, his first official trip outside of Rome, the small island was experiencing frequent landings of boats carrying hundreds of migrants and refugees from Africa — those who managed to survive the deadly crossing in search of a better life.
During his visit, Francis celebrated Mass at an altar made from a migrant boat and threw a wreath of white and yellow flowers into the sea to remember those who had lost their lives in the Mediterranean Sea.
Commenting on the capsize of a dingy carrying migrants in the Strait of Sicily just weeks beforehand, the pope said he was saddened by a tragedy that “has been repeated so many times.”
“I felt I had to come here today to pray. To show my solidarity, but also to awaken our consciences, so that what happened will not happen again. Please, let it not happen again,” he urged.
Just months later, in October 2013, at least 300 people died when a boat carrying more than 500 migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Somalia, sank off the coast of Lampedusa.
The same year, one of the island’s southern beaches was voted the world’s best beach by travel site TripAdvisor, underlining Lampedusa’s contrasting identities as both a migrant landing point and popular summer beach destination.
Now, Pope Leo will fly to the same island, whose 6,000 permanent inhabitants are inundated every year by tens of thousands of immigrants who arrive on boats run by people smugglers — the same human traffickers Leo forcefully denounced last month during a visit to another major European port of entry, the island of Tenerife, in Spain.
“Repent while there is still time,” he said, “for God’s mercy can reach even the most hardened sinner, but it enters only through the narrow gate of truth, justice, and conversion.”
The day before, the Holy Father also addressed immigration at the port of Arguineguín, on the coast of Gran Canaria. Human dignity, he said, “requires legal and safe routes, rescue and assistance, real cooperation against traffickers, effective protection for victims, serious processes of welcome and integration, and policies that allow each person to live with dignity in his or her own land.”
While the numbers are lower than the height of the migrant crisis more than a decade ago, Lampedusa continues to be the main port of disembarkation for migrants in Italy, with more than 49,500 refugees and migrants landing on its coasts in 2025, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.
Leo will mark this reality on July 4 with a stop at the Gateway to Europe memorial, a 16-foot-tall terracotta and iron arch situated on the tip of Cavallo Bianco, a cliff facing south toward Tunisia, not far from the island’s commercial port.
He will also leave flowers at the tombs of shipwreck victims and address migrants at Favaloro Pier, which will be renamed in honor of Pope Francis.
The morning will conclude with the celebration of Mass, where an image of the island’s patroness, Our Lady of Portosalvo (“safe port” in English), will be present.
This article was originally published by EWTN News English.
