As the United States celebrated its 250th anniversary, Pope Leo XIV visited the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See in Rome.
The Vatican confirmed the pope visited the residence of Ambassador Brian Burch and his wife, Sara, and their children on Saturday.
“I am deeply honored to celebrate this special day with a fellow American and the Bishop of Rome,” Burch said in a statement put on X – formally known as Twitter.
The ambassador added that the two men “discussed President Trump’s bold leadership and American efforts to pursue peace, religious freedom, and the need for moral clarity and courage around the world.”
That they talked a little business during a social call on a major national holiday is unsurprising, but the fact of the visit itself is fairly unusual: Popes don’t make many social calls.
Burch and his family also presented Leo with a USA World Cup jersey, a commemorative Freedom 250 baseball, and a homemade apple pie.
On the X account, the ambassador claimed Pope Leo confirmed that “he is rooting for the country of his birth in the World Cup.”
Leo is the first pontiff from the United States, and it was noted that he chose to visit the Italian city of Lampedusa on July 4th instead of visiting his native country.
Lampedusa is also where Pope Francis made his first visit in office, to draw attention to the refugee crisis facing the world.
Leo’s visit to the Mediterranean island – a flashpoint in Europe’s own ongoing migrant crisis – was designed to highlight the issue of migration and show the continuity of the Church’s commitment to migrants across pontificates.
That doesn’t mean, however, that the visit had nothing to say to the United States.
“The Apostles, as you know, sailed the Mediterranean and experienced the hospitality of the inhabitants of its islands and coasts, which have been a crossroads of civilizations for millennia,” Leo said on Saturday.
“The Gospel resounds where peoples meet, people welcome one another, their lives intertwine and different cultures engage in dialogue. It falls silent, however, when each person makes him or herself an island, avoiding contact and cutting off exchange,” the pope added.
Leo also said love is “always rooted in freedom, and freedom lies in the decisions we make.”
He never mentioned the United States during his meeting in Lampedusa, but the idea of freedom for immigrants was part of his message to America marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
“Defending human life also includes welcoming, protecting and assisting immigrants, whose hopes, sacrifices and contribution have formed part of the history of this country from its very beginning,” he wrote to the American people.
“In every generation, those who have arrived seeking freedom, opportunity and a place to belong have helped to shape the nation’s character. 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,” Leo said.
The pontiff has yet to visit his homeland after his election. Pope Francis never returned to his native Argentina after his election, although Pope Saint John Paul II visited his native Poland and Pope Benedict XVI his native Germany shortly after taking office.
Many observers speculated that Leo’s reticence about visiting the U.S. has two factors: It is a midterm election year, and both the American pope and his Argentinian predecessor have had conflicts with the current president, Donald Trump.
Trump has even attacked Leo, calling him “terrible” and “weak” when the pope refused to support the war against Iran.
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Before his election, many Vatican insiders thought a cardinal from the U.S. could not be elected as Bishop of Rome – the leader of the worldwide Church shouldn’t be a citizen of the world’s superpower.
In many ways, Pope Leo has somewhat downplayed his strong links to the United States. He has tried to limit his discussion of U.S. politics, although Trump’s statements have led to his answering many questions.
(Some American observers have noted you can take the man out of Chicago, but you can’t take the Chicago out of the man.)
Coupled with this, Leo is also strongly linked to Latin America.
Before becoming the head of the Dicastery for Bishops at the Vatican, he was the bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, where he gained citizenship.
Although he has yet to meet with Trump, the pope met with Peruvian President José María Balcázar on June 18, after which the president said Leo would visit the South American country in November.
The United States has also claimed a special interest in the rest of the hemisphere, going back to the Monroe Doctrine established in 1823.
Some have noted that Burch may have hinted at this on July 4, when he shared the State Department’s X post about the detention of Nicaraguan Bishop Abelardo Mata in the Central American country.
Leo’s knotty relationship with the current U.S. administration will not likely be overshadowed by his visit to his other homeland, which has its own complexities.
On that point, it is worth noting that on Friday – the day before the U.S. holiday – the next president of Peru was confirmed: Conservative politician Keiko Fujimori, eldest daughter of Peru’s strongman former president Alberto Fujimori.
Elected in 1990, Alberto Fujimori brought a brutal decades-long Marxist insurgency to heel, but he used brutal tactics to do it. He suspended the country’s constitution in 1992, taking the country in an authoritarian direction, while his neoliberal economic policies brought the country back into global commerce but were criticized for cronyism.
Alberto Fujimori was eventually convicted of human rights abuses.
A young Augustinian friar, Robert Francis Prevost, fearlessly but carefully opposed the regime’s authoritarianism.
The U.S. State Department issued a statement following Keiko Fujimori’s Friday runoff victory announcement.
“The Trump administration looks forward to deepening collaboration with the Fujimori administration to advance security cooperation,” the statement said, “and to strengthen bilateral cooperation on investment and trade in our region.”
Keiko Fujimori, who successfully ran a “tough on crime” campaign from her country’s political right and joins a slate of populist conservatives who have won office across Latin America, will take office later this month and will be the one to welcome Leo when he visits in November.
The situation in Peru and across Latin America is very much changed, it goes without stating explicitly, and if history doesn’t ever repeat itself – not really – sometimes, the saying goes, it rhymes.
Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome