By Courtney Mares
OSV News
LAMPEDUSA, ITALY — Pope Leo XIV traveled to the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa July 4, laying a wreath at the graves of migrants who drowned trying to reach Europe and celebrating an open-air Mass in which he called on Catholics to be good Samaritans offering compassion to those who suffer attempting make the perilous journey by sea.
“I have not come to give speeches, but to celebrate the Eucharist, the supreme sign of Christ’s presence among us. Jesus’ gesture of breaking bread to give himself gives meaning and strength to our daily acts of assistance and sharing,” Pope Leo told the crowd before offering Mass in a field overlooking Lampedusa’s main port.
“Yes, this is a place where gestures speak more than words,” he added. “But gestures, to be human, require a heart. This is why we have gathered here: to draw from Christ the love that only he can give us, so that the world of today and tomorrow may be more human, for everyone.”
Lampedusa has for years been one of the main gateways to Europe for migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Tunisia and Libya, a journey that has claimed thousands of lives.
In April, the Italian coast guard recovered 19 bodies and rescued 58 people after intercepting a distressed dinghy about 80 nautical miles south of Lampedusa, according to the Associated Press. Last August, a boat carrying nearly 100 migrants capsized in international waters near the island, killing at least 26.
During his homily, Pope Leo described the seas surrounding Lampedusa as “as dangerous as the one that led down from Jerusalem to Jericho” in Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke.
“Here you have seen not just one, but thousands of human beings fallen into the hands of robbers who have taken everything from them, beat them brutally and walked away, leaving them half-dead,” he said. “The sea has claimed the lives of others … we feel their presence, which challenges us no less than that of those who have landed in need of attention and aid.”
The pope landed on the island, which sits closer to the coast of North Africa than to mainland Italy, around 9 a.m.
His first stop was a cemetery, where he laid a floral wreath on the tombs of migrants who died at sea. The pope then visited the “Porta d’Europa,” or “Gateway to Europe,” a monument on the island, where he walked hand in hand with migrant children on the windy summer day.
About 14,000 migrants arrived on Italy’s shores in the first six months of 2026, according to the UNHR. Nearly 60% of that number arrived in Lampedusa, which is only about 8 square miles in size.
While walking along the island’s rocky coastline, the wind blew the pope’s zucchetto off his head, which his personal secretary Msgr. Edgard Rimaycuna quickly retrieved.
From there, the pope traveled to the Favaloro Pier, where he blessed a plaque dedicating the pier to the late Pope Francis and greeted a group of migrants accompanied by the Red Cross before celebrating Mass with about 4,000 people in attendance.
One of the few Americans in the crowd for the papal Mass on U.S. Independence Day was Father Daniel Groody, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and a member of the Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development.
“Pope Leo, especially now on the Fourth of July, is signaling what true freedom is about. True freedom is about the capacity to love,” Father Groody told OSV News.
“I think he’s continuing the tradition of the church that has always recognized that everybody is created in the image and likeness of God, and that he really wants to bring out the dignity that’s often diminished in today’s society.”
Pope Leo’s visit comes 13 years after Pope Francis visited Lampedusa in July 2013, drawing attention to the island by choosing it as the destination of his first trip outside Rome after his election as pope, as a gesture of solidarity with migrants smuggled from North Africa.
“It’s just a great expression that Pope Leo, at the beginning of his pontificate, really has decided to come here to Lampedusa, as Pope Francis did, to recognize the church must always be on the margins,” Father Groody said.
Salvatore Sortino, who directs the International Organization for Migration’s coordination office for the Mediterranean, said that even as overall crossing numbers have declined since Pope Francis’ visit, the proportion of migrants who die at sea or fall victim to accidents during the journey has risen.
Pope Leo’s Lampedusa visit came a day after the pope delivered a virtual address to a gathering at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, which awarded him its 2026 Liberty Medal for advancing religious liberty and freedom of conscience, in which he spoke passionately about the importance of the “right to life” from the moment of conception to natural death.