ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV departed Sunday for his summer vacation, wrapping up a whirlwind first half of 2026 in which he established himself as a formidable global voice on topics ranging from artificial intelligence to armed conflict — while also taking firm action on difficult matters within the Catholic Church.
Leo will spend the remainder of July at Castel Gandolfo, the Vatican’s historic hilltop summer residence located south of Rome. The American pope has made the estate a regular weekend destination for tennis and swimming.
Vatican officials announced Leo will stay through July 27, with all scheduled audiences on hold. They also confirmed that he will be housed in the Apostolic Palace overlooking Lake Alban — a more substantial residence than the smaller villa where he had previously spent his days off.
His predecessor, Pope Francis, had avoided Castel Gandolfo throughout his 12-year papacy and had converted the Apostolic Palace on the main piazza into a public museum. With Leo now spending extended time at the estate, Vatican officials appear to have concluded that the larger palace is better suited for security purposes and would allow the necessary staff and infrastructure to operate alongside him.
Leo visited the estate for a few weeks last summer as well, using that time to settle into his new role following his election by fellow cardinals on May 8, 2025.
At that time, the then-reserved former Cardinal Robert Prevost expressed his hope to “restore the body and spirit” during a brief period of rest.
One year on, Leo is departing Rome after a period of papal decision-making that has left close Vatican observers astonished. After acknowledging in the summer of 2025 that he had much to learn about serving as a head of state, recent weeks have revealed a confident governing style in which Leo has set the agenda himself rather than simply following the path laid out by his predecessor.
“Many people last year would have predicted a quiet papacy on the world stage and a focus on internal reform and governance,” said Austen Ivereigh, the biographer of Pope Francis. “But the first half of 2026 has shown the opposite: ironically, the one area where Leo had least confidence, as international statesman, is where his pontificate has really taken off.”
On July 4th — the 250th anniversary of American independence — Leo traveled to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, where he prayed at a cemetery for migrants to honor the thousands who lost their lives attempting to reach Europe in search of freedom and a better life.
That visit followed a similar gesture at the end of a trip to Spain, when Leo spoke from a dock in the Spanish Canary Islands once referred to as the “dock of shame” because of the terrible conditions migrants experienced during a surge in arrivals.
At both locations, Leo urged Europe to uphold the dignity of migrants. On Saturday, he also reminded the United States that it was built by immigrants and that Christians bear a responsibility to welcome, protect, and help integrate those seeking refuge from hardship.
For the Chicago-born pope, who has been at odds with the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, choosing to spend Independence Day at the heart of Europe’s migration debate carried deep symbolic weight.
That symbolism was amplified by Leo’s opposition to the U.S.-Israel war in Iran and the very public back-and-forth between President Donald Trump and Leo in April — with Trump posting on Truth Social and Leo responding with in-flight remarks while traveling through Africa — which thrust the American pope into the role of a leading anti-war figure on the global stage.
Ivereigh noted that the Trump administration first took notice of Leo’s peace-oriented message during his January address to the Vatican’s diplomatic corps, when Leo condemned the use of military force by nations to assert dominance worldwide, saying it was “completely undermining” peace and the post-World War II international legal order.
“The January speech to diplomats that alarmed the Trump administration turned out to be the launchpad,” Ivereigh said. “The Iran war and Trump’s reaction to his remarks in Africa propelled Leo overnight to guardian of the global conscience, which was cemented by the encyclical.”
That encyclical — Leo’s first, titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity) — was released to widespread attention in late May. In it, Leo called for strong oversight of artificial intelligence, particularly as the technology industry develops increasingly advanced tools for remote warfare.
The document declared that entrusting irreversible, life-or-death decisions to AI systems was “not permissible” — putting Leo in direct conflict with the Trump administration, which had been pushing aggressively to roll back AI regulations.
But the encyclical went beyond AI policy. Embedded within it was a historic acknowledgment of the Holy See’s own participation in facilitating slavery — a particularly striking moment given that Leo’s own family history includes both enslaved people and slave owners.
While previous popes have apologized for Christians’ involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, no pope had ever publicly admitted — let alone apologized for — the role that 15th-century popes played in granting European rulers explicit authority to subjugate and enslave “infidels.”
Leo described the Vatican’s record as a “wound in Christian memory” and asked “in the name of the church” for forgiveness — an apology that now raises questions about reparations owed to the descendants of enslaved people.
Leo also demonstrated bold leadership in recent days by approving a decision that no pope has made in roughly 50 years. On Thursday, the Vatican formally declared a traditionalist Catholic group to be in schism — meaning in official rupture from the Catholic Church — after the group consecrated four bishops without the pope’s consent.
The Vatican excommunicated the bishops and priests of the Society of St. Pius X, known as the SSPX, which follows the ancient Latin Mass and rejects the modern reforms of the Catholic Church.
Following five decades of attempts to bring the society back into full communion with Rome, the Vatican also warned the group’s lay members — estimated by the SSPX itself at around half a million worldwide — that they too risk excommunication for participating in the schism.
“Pope Leo has demonstrated that his emphasis on dialogue does not come at the expense of decisive governance,” said Andrew Chesnut, a professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.
“While the decision undoubtedly deepens the divide with the SSPX, it may ultimately strengthen cohesion among Catholics who accept Vatican authority, even when they disagree about liturgy or pastoral priorities,” he added.
The Rev. Robert Gahl, an ethics scholar at the Catholic University of America, said the SSPX situation highlighted how the pope remains the central figure and symbol of unity within the Church — a role that has come into sharper focus for Leo in recent weeks.
“With this decree he’s shown that he has the clarity and also the courage to inflict clear penalties on those who violate this communion,” Gahl said. “So we not only see Leo who is kind and level-headed, but he’s also an enforcer with clarity.”
