ROME – In another firm echo of the legacy of his predecessor, Pope Leo XIV released a nine-minute video message to the island community of Lampedusa on Friday, praising its efforts to welcome migrants and refugees and appearing to offer the prospect of an imminent papal visit.

“Today we greet each other at a distance, but I hope soon in person,” Leo said at the opening of the message, directed at the people of the island community in support of their bid to become part of the cultural patrimony of humanity recognized by UNESCO.

In June 2013, Pope Francis made his first trip outside Rome to Lampedusa, tossing a wreath into the sea to commemorate the tens of thousands of people who had died attempting to cross the Mediterranean during the European refugee crisis.

An Italian territory located just 80 miles off the coast of Tunisia, Lampedusa is a primary point of arrival for migrants and refuges attempting to reach Europe. Local reception facilities, both those operated by the Italian government and church, have long been overwhelmed attempting to meet the demands.

In his remarks on Friday, Pope Leo thanked the people of Lampedusa for their efforts, opening with a bit of local dialect, O’scià, which basically means “thank you!”

“You are a bastion of that humanity which shouted excuses, ancestral fears and unjust measures tend to undermine,” Leo said.

“Pope Francis denounced the globalization of indifference beginning precisely in Lampedusa. By now, [that attitude] seems to have mutated into a globalization of impotence before injustice and innocent suffering,” the pontiff said, speaking in Italian.

“We’re more aware [of what’s happening], but the risk is just standing still, silent and sad, overcome by the sensation there’s nothing we can do. What can I possibly do, facing such great evil?”

“This globalization of impotence is the daughter of a lie,” Leo XIV insisted, “as if history has always been like this. History is written by the winners, and the suggestion is that we can’t do anything about it.”

“In reality, history is devastated by the powerful, but it’s saved by the humble,” he said.

The pope spent much of the video delivering a series of thanks.

“My thanks for your witness, which is really the thanks of the entire Church, extends and renews that of Pope Francis,” he said. “Thanks to the associations, volunteers, mayors, and administrations that have succeeded one another over time.”

“Thank you to priests, doctors, security forces, and all those who, often invisibly, have shown and continue to show a smile and the care of a human face to survivors on their desperate journey of hope,” Leo said.

“There is no justice without compassion, there is no legitimacy without listening to the pain of others,” the pope said.

Leo warned of a flagging of energy after so much time has passed facing a similar onslaught of challenges.

“It’s true, as the years pass, fatigue can set in,” he said. “Like a race, you can run out of breath. Fatigue tends to call into question what you’ve done and, at times, even divide us.”

“We must react together, staying united and opening ourselves once again to God’s breath,” the pope urged. All the good you’ve done may seem like drops in the ocean. That’s not the case; it’s much more.”

So many victims — and among them, so many mothers and children! — cry out from the depths of the Mare Nostrum not only to heaven, but to our hearts,” Leo said, using an ancient Roman expression meaning “Our Sea” to refer to the Mediterranean.

“Many migrant brothers and sisters have been buried in Lampedusa, and they rest in the earth like seeds from which a new world awaits the sprouting of life,” the pope said. “But thank God, there is also no shortage of thousands of faces and names of people who are living a better life today and will never forget your charity.”