The Vatican has announced that Pope Leo XIV will travel up and down the Italian peninsula over the next few months. In May, he will visit ground zero of Europe’s immigration drama, the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, and also minister to Italians poisoned by years of toxic dumping by the mafia. The busy itinerary is in addition to plans for a four-nation trip to Africa after Easter that would take Leo to Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, Angola and Cameroon. Leo himself has said he hopes to visit his beloved Peru, as well as Argentina and Uruguay. The Vatican previously confirmed that one foreign trip not on the agenda this year is to Leo’s native United States.
