History’s first American pope is on his maiden papal voyage, and it has taken him to the heart of Christianity: First to Turkey to commemorate a founding profession of the Christian faith and now to Lebanon to encourage an ancient Christian community in a country that is unique in the Arab world for its religious tolerance.
The highlight of his day was an interfaith meeting in Martyr’s Square in Beirut, with the country’s Christian patriarchs and Sunni, Shiite and Druze spiritual leaders gathered under a tent. After listening to hymns and readings from the Bible and Quran, Leo praised Lebanon’s tradition of religious tolerance as a beacon for “the divine gift of peace” in the region.
“In an age when coexistence can seem like a distant dream, the people of Lebanon, while embracing different religions, stand as a powerful reminder that fear, distrust and prejudice do not have the final word, and that unity, reconciliation, and peace are possible,” he said.
Leo’s remarks underscored the vital importance of Lebanon and its Christian community to the Catholic Church, a place that St. John Paul II famously said was more than just a country, but a message of freedom to the rest of the world. At the end of the event, the spiritual leaders planted an olive sapling as a symbol of peace.
While Lebanon is now often cited as a model of religious coexistence, it hasn’t always been that way. The country's civil war from 1975 to 1990 was largely fought along sectarian lines.
A visit at a tense time
Leo’s visit comes at a newly tenuous time for the tiny Mediterranean country after years of conflict, economic crises and political deadlock, punctuated by the 2020 Beirut port blast. At a time of conflict in Gaza and worsening political tensions in Lebanon, Leo’s visit has been welcomed by the Lebanese as a sign of hope.
“We, as Lebanese, need this visit after all the wars, crises and despair that we have lived through,” said the Rev. Youssef Nasr, the secretary-general of Catholic Schools in Lebanon. “The pope’s visit gives a new push to the Lebanese to rise and cling to their country.”
More recently, Lebanon has been deeply divided over calls for Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group and political party, to disarm after fighting a war with Israel last year that left the country deeply damaged. Despite a ceasefire, Israel has carried out almost daily airstrikes targeting Hezbollah members.
The Grand Sunni Muslim Mufti of Lebanon, Abdul-Latif Derian, welcomed Leo at the interfaith event and recalled the good relations forged by his predecessor, Pope Francis. He cited the 2019 joint statement on human fraternity signed by Francis and the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the seat of Sunni learning in Cairo, Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayeb.
“Lebanon is the land of this message,” Derian said.
A top Lebanese Shiite Muslim cleric, Ali al-Khatib, deputy head of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, urged Leo to help Lebanon end Israel’s attacks amid rising concerns in the Mediterranean country of wider Israeli strikes.
“We put Lebanon in your hands so that maybe the world helps us,” al-Khatib said.
A prayer at a saint revered by Christians and Muslims
Leo opened his day by praying at the tomb of St. Charbel Makhlouf, a Lebanese saint revered by many Christians and Muslims.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, Christian and Muslim, visit the tomb at the hilltop monastery of St. Maroun overlooking the sea at Annaya, around 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Beirut.
Bells rang out as Leo’s covered popemobile snaked its way through the rain to the monastery where Leo prayed quietly in the darkened tomb and offered a lamp as a gift of light for the community there.
Leo was moving through Lebanon in a closed popemobile, a contrast with Francis, who eschewed bulletproof popemobiles throughout his 12-year pontificate. Lebanese troops deployed on both sides of the roads all along his motorcade routes, but his warm welcome underscored the joy his visit had brought.
Many Lebanese posted footage of the welcome alongside a widely shared hot mic video of Queen Rania of Jordan, during an October visit to the Vatican, asking Leo if it was safe to go to Lebanon. Leo’s response, "Well, we’re going,” had cheered Lebanese who were otherwise offended by the suggestion that Lebanon wasn’t safe for the pope to visit.
Leo ended the day at a jubilant rally of Lebanese youth at Bkerki, the seat of the Maronite Church, where he sought to encourage them to persevere and not leave the country as many others have done.
“This is an unforgettable moment,” said Nawal Ghossein, a Maronite Catholic who welcomed the pope with a group from her church. “We are so proud because we are Christians. So proud!”
A plea for Christians to stay
Today, Christians make up around a third of Lebanon’s 5 million people, giving the small nation on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean the largest percentage of Christians in the Middle East.
A power-sharing agreement in place since independence from France calls for the president to be a Maronite Christian, making Lebanon the only Arab country with a Christian head of state
The Vatican sees Christian presence as a bulwark for the church in the region.
Lebanese Christians have endured in their ancestral homeland even after an exodus following the country's civil war. The region has also seen Christians from Iraq and Syria fleeing in large numbers after the rise of the Islamic State Group, which was defeated in 2019 after losing its last stronghold in Syria.
“We will stay here,” said May Noon, a pilgrim waiting for Leo outside the St. Charbel Monastery. “No one can uproot us from this country. We must live in it as brothers because the church has no enemy.”
Bishop Antoine-Charbel Tarabay accompanied a group of 60 people from the Lebanese diaspora in Australia not only to welcome Leo and join in his prayer for peace but also to reinforce Christian presence in the country.
“Even though we live abroad, we feel that we need to support young people and the families to stay here,” he said. “We don’t like to see more and more people leaving Lebanon, especially Christians.”
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Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.
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