New Delhi, March 17 -- Pope Leo XIV will accept the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia on the eve of July 4 in a remote broadcast from Rome but won't travel to the U.S. during its 250th birthday celebrations this year.

Leo, the first American pope, will instead spend the Fourth of July on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, the arrival point for many desperate migrants trying to reach Europe from Africa.

He will be honored on Independence Mall on July 3 for "his lifelong work promoting religious liberty and freedom of conscience and expression around the world - ideals enshrined by America's founders in the First Amendment," the National Constitution Center said in a press release Monday.

The center awards the Liberty Medal each year to someo...