Pope Leo’s travel plans – affront to Trump

News blog about US politics

Pope Leo’s travel plans make people sit up and take notice

The French foreign minister summons the US ambassador. Pope Leo is making people sit up and take notice with his travel plans. All developments in the news blog.

Pope Leo XIV will visit a Mediterranean island known for the passage of migrants to Europe on July 4, America’s Independence Day. The Vatican announced this week that the first American head of the Catholic Church will visit Lampedusa. The small Italian island has for years been considered a gateway for migrants and refugees traveling to Europe from Africa and the Middle East.

Pope Leo’s visit to Lampedusa follows a year of tension between the Vatican and the Trump administration over the president’s sweeping immigration measures in the United States, which Pope Leo has repeatedly spoken out against. Before he became pope, then-Cardinal Robert Prevost published several posts criticizing both Vance’s and Trump’s policies. Last September, given the US government’s immigration policy, he questioned whether the poor treatment of immigrants was consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Observers see the fact that the American Pope is traveling to Lampedusa on American Independence Day as a clear sign in the direction of Trump. The US President had already announced that on July 4th he would celebrate the “most spectacular birthday party the world has ever seen.” Just a few days ago, the Vatican turned down an invitation from the US government to visit his homeland. Pope Leo will no longer travel to the USA this year, it was said.

After the US government made statements about the alleged murder of a right-wing activist in France, Paris Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot summoned US Ambassador Charles Kushner. “We reject any instrumentalization of this drama (…) for political purposes,” Barrot said on France Inter. Summoning an ambassador is seen – especially among allies – as a clear diplomatic means of protest.

The US Embassy in France had distributed a message from the US State Department’s counterterrorism office on X, in which the killing in Lyon was seen as evidence of a worrying threat from left-wing extremist violence. They will continue to monitor the situation and hope that those responsible for this violence will be brought to justice, the statement added.