When, soon after being elected in 2013, Pope Francis broke from longstanding Vatican tradition by choosing not to spend his summer holiday in the papal retreat of Castel Gandolfo, a sleepy hilltop town overlooking a lake about an hour south of Rome, residents were taken aback.

One shopkeeper, Anna, compared the perceived rejection to a divorce, while another said it slightly ruptured a sense of belonging.

Now, after 12 summers without a pontiff among them, their spirits have been restored by Pope Leo, elected in early May after the death of Francis, opting to revive Castel Gandolfo as the go-to papal holiday destination.

Leo arrives on Sunday for a two-week stay and will return in mid-August for a few more days of rest and relaxation.

“To say we are happy would be an understatement,” Anna said. “Not only because his presence generates some activity but because this is a papal town – it is the air that we breathe.”

View image in fullscreen Benedict XVI giving his last blessing as pope from the window of the pontiff’s summer residence of Castel Gandolfo in 2013. Photograph: AP

The Vatican’s connection with Castel Gandolfo began in 1596 when it bought a castle in the centre of the town from a noble Roman family. Thirty years later it became established as the papal summer bolthole after undergoing renovations commissioned by Pope Urbano VIII, the first pontiff to holiday in the town in a quest to flee the stifling heat of Rome.

The tradition continued almost uninterrupted until Francis, who tended to shun the Vatican’s pomp and privilege. He visited Castel Gandolfo on only three occasions, and all during the first months of his papacy – twice to preside over mass and once to see his predecessor, Benedict.

View image in fullscreen The Apostolic Palace in Castel Gandolfo. Photograph: Mondadori Portfolio/Archivio Marco Piraccini/Marco Piraccini/Mondadori/Getty

Francis spent his summers in his humble Vatican abode. But he did help to transform Castel Gandolfo from a pilgrim site into more of a tourist destination after the papal palace became a museum in 2015. Visitors can wander through its Renaissance-era gardens and vast rooms, which contain garments worn by popes dating back to the 16th century, and marvel at the views over Lake Albano from the windows of the papal bedroom.

“We did feel abandoned by Francis and the first few years were difficult,” said Maurizio Carosi, who with his son owns a bar and gift shop opposite the palace. “But now we’ve moved on from a pilgrim town to a tourist one – so even if Francis didn’t come, he gave us a spiritual charge.”

The palace will remain a museum while Leo and his accompanying Swiss Guards reside in another newly renovated property within its grounds.

View image in fullscreen The Apostolic Palace gardens in Castel Gandolfo. Photograph: Sandro Barbagallo/Musei Vaticani

The excitement in the town is palpable as it prepares for the American pontiff’s arrival. Gardeners were preening the lawns within the palace on Friday morning while workers were putting the finishing touches to the pope’s holiday home and tidying up its tennis court so that Leo can indulge his passion for the game.

As with pontiffs over history, the break will not only be about resting. Leo is expected to host audiences and rosaries for the local residents and carry out Vatican duties.

View image in fullscreen Pope John Paul II and George W Bush looking out over Lake Albano from Castel Gandolfo in 2001. Photograph: Arturo Mari/AP

“Just because they’re on holiday, they don’t necessarily stop working,” said Tadeusz Rozmus, the parish priest of San Tommoso dal Villanova church. “Pope John Paul II wrote encyclicals here and others have hosted heads of state. Castel Gandolfo is a much more pleasant place for them to reside in summer as they can escape the heat of Rome, and with the way things are going, summers are only going to get hotter.”

Alberto De Angelis, the mayor of Castel Gandolfo, has readily embraced the papal return, especially as it is expected to help fill the town’s coffers. “Knowing that Pope Leo has listened to the wishes of our community, which for years has been waiting to see a pope in its square, fills our hearts and souls with joy,” he wrote on social media.

View image in fullscreen A view of the Pontiff’s private apartments, now open to tourists as a museum. Photograph: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images

The town’s smattering of gift shops are yet to be filled with souvenirs featuring Leo’s image. “Everyone is asking for his image but I heard he doesn’t want to see his face on glasses, plates, candles or whatever,” Carosi said, claiming that whatever was being sold in Rome was bootleg. “Leo souvenirs have not been officially authorised.”

Carosi was born in Castel Gandolfo and recalls popes of the past greeting people in the square and shaking hands.

When it comes to Pope Leo, he said his character was “yet to be discovered”. “But I know he’ll be happy here,” he added. “He’ll have a view of the lake, will breathe the fresh air and will find himself among good people. Being an athletic pope, he will also have the possibility to enjoy long walks in the gardens.”

Pope Leo XIV is returning to tradition by travelling to Castel Gandolfo on Sunday (July 6). The pontiff will be in the lake town, taking a break as the heatwave across Europe intensifies. But what do we know of this papal villa? read more

Pope Leo XIV is set to resume a tradition that dates back to the 17th century when he heads out of Vatican City for a summer vacation. The Pontiff will be heading to Castel Gandolfo, the lakeside town about an hour south of Rome, on Sunday (July 6). The tradition was abandoned by Pope Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, for the 12 years that he presided over the Vatican.

Pope Leo is set to stay at the summer retreat from July 6 to July 20, stated the Vatican. But what is this place?

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What is Castel Gandolfo?

The town is nestled in the Alban Hills, approximately 25 kilometres southeast of Rome, overlooking the serene Lake Albano. The palace was built by Pope Urban VIII in 1624 and is a former Roman villa featuring vast Renaissance-style gardens that was adapted into a papal summer residence. The lake town has been owned by the Vatican since 1596. At 55 hectares (136 acres), it is bigger than Vatican City itself.

According to the Vatican, Leo will move to the papal retreat of Castel Gandolfo from July 6 to July 20 for a period of rest. Although he will not stay at the palace, but another Vatican-owned property, reported news agency Reuters.

People walk in front of the Apostolic Palace in the central square of the town of Castel Gandolfo. Reuters

Though Leo’s vacation will largely be private, spent within a Vatican-owned building, he is expected to appear publicly at religious celebrations on July 13 and 20.

Another short stay has been planned around the Catholic Assumption feast day in August, the Vatican said.

Why did Pope Francis not visit the summer home?

The late Pope Francis, who died in April, deliberately avoided many of the traditional trappings and splendour of the papacy. One of them was choosing to stay at his humble Vatican residence over Castel Gandolfo for summer stays.

So, during the years of his papacy, the tradition of travelling to the Castle Gandolfo was halted. Before him, both of his immediate predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, spent time at Castel Gandolfo, interspersed with visits to the northern Italian Alps.

Benedict was especially fond of Castel Gandolfo, closing his papacy out there in 2013.

How have the people of Castel Gondalfo reacted?

The residents of the town are extremely excited about Pope’s visit, as many feel that it will boost local tourism and business.

Mayor Alberto De Angelis told news agency Reuters that residents were excited about the visit. “The presence of the popes in Castel Gandolfo has always meant a lot of activity, a lot of economic growth,” he said. “Pope Leo has given us a wonderful gift,” Stefano Carosi, the owner of a coffee shop on the town’s main square, said. “The pope has always been important here, because he attracts people.”

People sit at a restaurant overlooking Lake Albano in Castel Gandolfo. Reuters

Francis had Castel Gandolfo’s papal palace turned into a museum and opened the gardens to visitors. According to Marina Rossi, owner of a local mosaic studio, tourist visits have increased beyond the summer papal audiences, with people now coming more frequently. “It was more of a hit-and-run tourism, because there was the audience and then they would leave,” she told Reuters. “Now there is a steady flow of tourism throughout the whole year.”

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Rossi believes Leo’s return offers the town an opportunity to attract even more tourists. “It’s an important moment,” she said. “I won’t hide my happiness.“As for what Leo might do during his vacation, Maurizio Carosi, brother of Stefano, had a suggestion, saying he’d tell the pope, “If you want a good glass of wine, come visit with me!”

What about Europe’s heatwave?

Europe is currently in the middle of a heatwave with temperatures having exceeded 40 degrees Celsius in several places. So far, at least eight people have lost their lives due to the extreme heatwave gripping Europe, reported Reuters.

According to reports, two people have lost their lives in France while the weather department issued a red alert, the highest extreme heat warning across 16 regions in the nation, including Paris. Hot temperatures have also scorched the United Kingdom, which is reporting its second heatwave of the summer. Spain and France have also reported casualties as temperatures shoot up.

With inputs from agencies

The pontiff and the president had little in common.

One spurned the traditional red shoes and luxurious apostolic palace for religious simplicity, living humbly in a Vatican City guesthouse. The other made a brand of his own name and wrapped nearly everything he touched, from New York City skyscrapers to the Oval Office, in a gilded sheen.

But Pope Francis and President Trump disagreed over far more than style. By the time they met at the Vatican in 2017, the vast differences in their priorities and worldviews were clear.

Both rose to global prominence during the same decade of rapid political and societal change, as war, poverty and climate change disrupted nations and sent millions of migrants across the globe. And both leveraged their personal charisma to flex their power in transformative ways, remaking the Catholic church and American politics in their own outsider images.

Yet the relationship between the two was defined by the chasm between them, frequently bursting into public view in extraordinary clashes that revealed radically opposing visions of how to lead, and of what kind of world they hoped to create.

Until the pope’s final day, the two leaders had been tangling over immigration, an issue both saw as crucial to their mission and legacy.

Mr. Trump twice won the White House on promises to halt illegal border crossings, blaming undocumented immigrants for crime, economic malaise and terrorism.

Pope Francis believed that Christian love required compassionate care for migrants, and that Mr. Trump’s agenda of mass deportation violated the “dignity of many men and women, and of entire families.”

His first papal trip, in 2013, had been to the island of Lampedusa, a Mediterranean gateway to Europe for asylum seekers, to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis he felt the world was ignoring.

Image Pope Francis visited the tiny Mediterranean island of Lampedusa in 2013. Credit… Alessandra Tarantino/Associated Press

During the 2016 election, the pope criticized Mr. Trump’s pledge to build a wall on the United States’ border with Mexico, saying it suggested that the Republican candidate was “not Christian.”

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Pope Francis said as he flew back to Rome from Mexico hours after celebrating a 200,000-person Mass in Ciudad Juárez.

Mr. Trump shot back, calling the Pope’s comments “disgraceful” and saying, through a campaign statement, that if the Vatican were ever “attacked by ISIS,” the pope “would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President.”

Representative Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat and observant Catholic, said the Pope’s early criticism of Mr. Trump had created the “completely unprecedented circumstance” of a pontiff who had openly excoriated an American president and a president who had been eager to return the fire.

“The fact that Trump, unlike previous presidents — Democrats and Republicans — was so vitriolically against immigration, and would use, and continues to use, really insulting rhetoric about immigrants, prompted this pope to speak out in a way that you didn’t see earlier,” said Mr. Boyle, who attended Pope Francis’s address to Congress in 2015.

On Monday, unlike other world leaders, who offered grateful and glowing testimonials to the pope, Mr. Trump offered a terse tribute on social media. “Rest in Peace Pope Francis!” he wrote on Truth Social. “May God Bless him and all who loved him!”

Mr. Trump also addressed the pope’s death in brief remarks later on Monday morning before the White House Easter Egg Roll.

Image “Rest in Peace Pope Francis!” President Trump wrote on Truth Social. He attended the White House Easter Egg Roll with the first lady, Melania Trump, on Monday. Credit… Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

“He loved the world, and he especially loved people that were having a hard time — and that’s good with me,” Mr. Trump said, announcing that he was ordering flags at the White House and federal and military facilities to be flown at half-staff.

Asked if he agreed with the pope’s tolerance toward migrants, Mr. Trump said, “Yeah, I do.” But moments later, in response to a question about a legal case over his administration’s deportation of Venezuelan migrants, Trump railed against the “millions and millions” of migrants who have entered the United States.

After Mr. Trump’s first election, the two met — for the only time — at the Vatican in 2017. The photos quickly went viral. Standing side by side, the president smiled broadly as the pope appeared stern.

The Pope gave the president, a known skeptic of climate change, a set of English-language translations of his papal writings, including a 2015 encyclical on climate change.

Mr. Trump, seemingly star-struck, told reporters: “He is something. We had a fantastic meeting.”

But in 2018, Pope Francis condemned Mr. Trump’s separation of migrant children from their parents at the border with Mexico, calling the policy “immoral” and “contrary to our Catholic values.”

And in 2019, in another criticism of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy, the pope warned that those who close borders “will become prisoners of the walls that they build.”

The pope’s tone with Mr. Trump was markedly different from the one he had struck with former President Barack Obama, whose White House he visited and with whose goals he was often aligned, on issues including an easing of tensions with Cuba and the Iran nuclear deal.

The Obama-Francis relationship had symbolized what many liberals believed was the coming of a progressive era on the world stage.

“There was a meeting of minds,” said John Kerry, Mr. Obama’s secretary of state, who met repeatedly with Pope Francis. “The pope had enormous admiration for President Obama’s journey and what he represented and his efforts as a peacemaker.”

That sense of overlapping missions allowed Democrats to claim the pope as one of their own — even if they didn’t agree on every issue, including abortion rights and same-sex marriage. But it also set the stage for Republican backlash and for the conflict with Mr. Trump, who aggressively courted disgruntled conservative Catholics.

“For Donald Trump, Pope Francis looked like an enemy because he’s been friendly with Obama and with Biden,” said Steven P. Millies, the director of the Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and an expert on the Catholic church’s relationship to politics. “There was not going to be much chance of a personal relationship between Pope Francis and Donald Trump. What we can call personal tensions have been visible very publicly.”

Indeed, after Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the White House, becoming America’s second Catholic president, the Pope called him “to tell me how much he appreciated the fact that I would focus on the poor and focus on the needs of people who are in trouble,” Mr. Biden later recounted.

Image Joseph R. Biden Jr. was America’s second Catholic president. Credit… Erin Schaff/The New York Times

And in a visit to the Vatican in 2021, after U.S. bishops had advanced a proposal that would deny Mr. Biden communion for his support of abortion rights, Mr. Biden said the pope had told him that he was happy that Mr. Biden was a “good Catholic.”

By contrast, when Mr. Biden decided to not seek re-election in 2024 and Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, the pope advised Catholic voters to choose the “lesser of two evils” because “both are against life” — Ms. Harris for her support for abortion rights, and Mr. Trump for closing the door to immigrants.

“Sending migrants away, not allowing them to grow, not letting them have life is something wrong; it is cruelty,” Francis said. “Sending a child away from the womb of the mother is murder because there is life. And we must speak clearly about these things.”

Mr. Trump’s re-election in November again put the two leaders’ starkly contrasting values in opposition. As Mr. Trump promised to elevate conservative Christian values in America, Pope Francis, whom Catholics view as God’s representative on earth, escalated his criticism.

In January, the pope said in an interview on Italian television that it would be a “disgrace” if Mr. Trump went forward with plans to intensify immigration enforcement. In February, the pope issued an unusual open letter to America’s Catholic bishops denouncing mass deportations and predicting that the policy would “end badly.”

“I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church,” he wrote, “not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.”

The letter, written just days before the pope was hospitalized, also offered an apparent rebuttal to Vice President JD Vance’s interpretation of a Catholic teaching that he had used to defend the administration’s deportation policies.

Still, in the final hours of his life, the pope briefly welcomed Mr. Vance, a Catholic convert, into his residence for an Easter greeting. Soon after, he went to the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, where an aide read aloud what would be the pontiff’s final public message.

“How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants!” he said.