As America Celebrates 250th July 4th, First American Pope Protests With ‘Unofficial’ Statement on Migration

As America celebrates its 250th anniversary on July 4, the first American-born pope will not be in attendance. Instead, he will make an “unofficial” statement as he visits one of the main entry points to Europe for African migrants. The Trump Administration has had a strained relationship with the Vatican, as Catholic leaders have repeatedly criticized the president’s immigration policies and the Iran war. Last year, Vice President Vance met with Pope Leo and invited him to visit the White House. There were reports that the pontiff declined an invitation to attend the 250th anniversary events — the White House denies that it extended such an invitation.Instead, Pope Leo will visit an Italian island known as the “Door of Europe,” Lampedusa, which has become a major entry point for migrants from Africa. In 2025, more than 49,500 migrants arrived on the island. In 2013, Pope Francis visited Lampedusa on his first trip outside of Rome.A Vatican official cast the trip as an “unofficial statement.” The undersecretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, Reverend Antonio Spadaro, told the Washington Post, “An American pope — the first in history — who on July Fourth, the national holiday of the United States, chooses not to celebrate the birth of a nation and its borders but to stand on the wounded threshold of the Mediterranean.”“This journey comes at a moment when the United States has made the closing of its doors to migrants a banner, and an American pope knows this all too well,” Reverend Spadaro added. “His choice is not a head-on polemic — Leo does not point fingers — but a counterpoint. He reminds everyone that the dignity God gives to every person comes before the border.”Pope Leo will accept the National Constitution’s Liberty Medal via a remote broadcast on July 3. The award will commemorate “his lifelong work promoting religious liberty and freedom of conscience and expression around the world – ideals enshrined by the United States’ founders in the First Amendment.”Ahead of the visit — which has been seen as a snub of the Trump Administration — Vice President Vance criticized Pope Leo for his comments about immigration. During an interview on Fox News on Tuesday, Mr. Vance said, “I do think that some of the things that have come out of the Vatican on the immigration question in particular have been troubling, and ultimately I disagree with it.”“What I tell the Catholic leadership I talk to who disagree with our immigration policies, you know, I’m not hostile about it. I invite them to have the conversation but I also encourage them to remember that mass migration has victims,” the vice president said.Mr. Vance has previously argued that the Trump Administration’s policies are in line with Catholic teaching. During an appearance on ABC’s “The View” last month, Mr. Vance noted that the Catholic Church says that “you can have borders.” While he said that immigration enforcement is “not always going to be pretty,” he argued that the government needs to be able to deport more than just migrants who have committed violent crimes to enforce the law.

As America Celebrates 250th July 4th, First American Pope Protests With ‘Unofficial’ Statement on Migration

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