LAMPEDUSA, Italy (CNS) — For more than 30 years, Dr. Pietro Bartolo said he has examined more than 350,000 people and performed postmortem examinations on those who died making the crossing to Lampedusa, where migrants rescued from the Mediterranean first arrived.
One story, he said, has stayed with him.
After a shipwreck near Malta, a father told Bartolo how he had tried to keep his family alive in the water. He held his youngest child against his chest, his wife with one hand and his 3-year-old son with the other as he swam. When he realized he no longer had the strength to save everyone, he let go of his older son.
“‘If I had held on for one more minute, my son would still be here,'” Bartolo recalled the father telling him. Rescue crews arrived moments later.
“Understand,” Bartolo said in an interview with Catholic News Service June 3, “how terrible it is that a father has to choose which child to let go.”
Stories like this, he said, explain why Pope Leo XIV came to Lampedusa.
For Bartolo, who spent decades as Lampedusa’s physician and former member of the European Parliament, these human tragedies explain why Pope Leo chose this tiny Mediterranean island for one of the defining visits of his pontificate.
“People ask why the pope comes to Lampedusa,” Bartolo told CNS. “Because this is the icon of solidarity.”
As the first American pope marked the 250th anniversary of the United States’ Declaration of Independence July 4, he did so not in celebration of his homeland, but on a European migrant entrypoint, praying for migrants buried in the island’s cemetery, meeting survivors and celebrating Mass where tens of thousands of people flee war, persecution and poverty.
Before delivering a single public address, Leo laid flowers at the graves of migrants who died trying to cross the Mediterranean. He met a migrant family at the “Door of Europe” monument, blessed a plaque naming Favaloro Pier after Pope Francis, and later celebrated Mass beneath an image of Our Lady of Safe Harbor.
The visit deliberately echoed Pope Francis’ first journey outside Rome in 2013, when Francis came to Lampedusa to denounce what he called the “globalization of indifference.”
“I am grateful to the Lord for the opportunity to visit you, following in the footsteps of Pope Francis,” Leo said in his homily at the Arena sports field in the Salina district of Lampedusa.
But while repeating his predecessors’ focus on migrants, Leo gave the message his own theological emphasis.
Reflecting on the parable of the Good Samaritan, he said Lampedusa today lies “along a path as dangerous as the one that led down from Jerusalem to Jericho.”
“Those who have lost their lives in this sea are victims both of decisions that were made and of decisions that were not made,” he said.
The pope praised the fishermen, volunteers, rescue workers, civil authorities and ordinary island residents who have welcomed migrants for years, thanking them for demonstrating “the miracle of compassion.”
“There is no love of God without love of neighbor,” he said, “and there is no neighbor if I do not draw near.”
“Indifference to the common good and corruption in their countries,” generates poverty and exclusion, Pope Leo said. Yet quoting his first encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas,” he said, “no one is without responsibility.”
Leo also urged Europe to move beyond emergency responses, calling for long-term policies capable of “receiving, protecting, supporting and integrating migrants,” while helping developing countries so that “no one is forced to emigrate.”
His message extended beyond Europe.
In addition to his July 4 homily, Leo released a message marking the United States’ 250th birthday, praising the nation’s founding ideals of liberty and religious freedom while reminding Americans that immigrants “have formed part of the history of this country from its very beginning.”
“Defending human life also includes welcoming, protecting and assisting immigrants,” he wrote, calling such welcome “not only an act of charity, but also a recognition of the dignity that belongs to every human person.”
For the first American papacy, migration has been a priority as a matter of human dignity. Pope Leo tied in his trip to the migrant entry point on the U.S. holiday, saying immigrants “have formed part of the history of this country from its very beginning.”
“To receive them with compassion and generosity is not only an act of charity, but also a recognition of the dignity that belongs to every human person.”
Pope Leo said the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is not only an invitation to celebrate, “but also to reflect upon the responsibilities that the sons and daughters of this country bear to one another.”
That message resonates deeply on Lampedusa.
According to Mediterranean Hope’s annual report on the Migration Observatory of Lampedusa, nearly 40,000 migrants arrived on the island in 2025, with more than 80% departing from Libya. The observatory documented at least 1,314 deaths along the central Mediterranean route during the year, while noting that the actual number is likely higher because many shipwrecks go unrecorded.
For Bartolo, however, statistics tell only part of the story. The retired physician said conducting postmortem examinations on drowned children and families “turned my life upside down.” The doctor now spends his time traveling across Europe speaking in schools and universities about what he witnessed during his years at the migrant entrypoint.
Remembering the dead has also become the life’s work of Tareke Brhane, an Eritrean refugee who crossed the Mediterranean himself before reaching Italy in 2006.
After surviving the journey, Brhane founded the Committee of Oct. 3 following the 2013 shipwreck off Lampedusa that claimed more than 360 lives. The organization works to identify those who die at sea and return names to victims buried as unknown migrants.
“The majority have only numbers,” Brhane said.
His committee has helped identify roughly 100 bodies and successfully campaigned for Italy to establish Oct. 3 as a national day of remembrance for migrants who died trying to reach Europe, he told CNS.
For Brhane, Leo’s decision to begin his visit in the cemetery was the day’s most powerful gesture. Brhane has made it one of his life’s missions to identify migrants buried without names.
Many bodies recovered from the Mediterranean have historically been buried with only a case number because authorities could not establish their identities. The Committee of Oct. 3 has worked with forensic experts, Italian authorities and victims’ families to change that. He told CNS that there is a huge difference in the graves of residents and the unmarked graves of migrants.
“People will talk about the port,” he said. “But the real message was that he went first to the cemetery to pray for those who died.”
He called Lampedusa “a place of suffering and a place of hope.”
Many migrants who later become citizens of Britain, Sweden or the Netherlands return simply to stand once more on the island where they first arrived alive, he said.
“They say this is where we were born again,” Brhane told CNS.
With a similar message, Mayor Filippo Mannino told the pope during his visit that the island is as a beacon that “does not judge” and “does not choose whom to illuminate,” but remains lit through the night for anyone searching for shore.
“No one is too small to point the way,” he said.
The visit echoed his June apostolic journey to Spain, when the pope devoted some of his strongest remarks on migration to the Canary Islands, another major gateway for migrants seeking to reach Europe. Speaking there, he urged Europeans not to allow tourism to obscure the human suffering unfolding along migration routes and challenged visitors to “have the courage to think differently,” saying authentic rest should lead people to rediscover the meaning of life and solidarity with others.
Leo repeated that theme in Lampedusa, again using the image of the Good Samaritan to argue that Christian discipleship requires drawing near to those in need rather than “passing by.”
“Have the courage to think differently,” the pope urged those who vacation on the island, encouraging them not to ignore the suffering unfolding in the surrounding sea.
From this “far-flung corner of Europe,” he said, the challenge facing both Europe and the wider world can be seen with unusual clarity.
“All of this must be done with vigilance, ensuring respect for the dignity of every person,” the pope said July 4. “This is a task not only for public institutions but also for civil society as a whole and for the Church.”
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