Pope Leo visits a wounded Lebanon in his first trip to the Middle East : NPR

BEIRUT – Pope Leo XIV is in Lebanon on his first visit to the Middle East since being elected leader of the world’s Catholics in May. He comes at a critical time for the country, which is reeling from conflict with Israel and a devastating economic crisis.

The Pope arrived from Türkiye on Sunday evening. His first foreign destination, where he remembered 1,700th anniversary A testament of faith originating from the First Council of Nicaea in present-day Iznik is still read in churches throughout the world.

On Monday morning, well-wishers, many of them wearing rain-coats, lined the streets behind metal railings under a drizzling sky as the convoy drove through winding roads near Beirut to the mountaintop tomb of a 19th-century monk now known as St. Charbel Makhlouf. As the Popemobile was heading towards the Maroon Monastery, some people threw rose petals at it.

At the tomb of the saint known for miracles of healing, Pope Leo spoke of Charbel’s silence, humility and poverty, which he described as counter-cultural, “radical” virtues for modern life.

The Pope presented a gift of a hand-made votive lamp attached to silver olive branches, saying that he had “entrusted Lebanon and its people to Saint Charbel so that they may always walk in the light of Christ.”

Lebanon played an important role in the history of early Christianity. The Galilee where Christians believe Jesus preached extends to part of present-day southern Lebanon. Maroon Monastery was built a century after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Christians are believed to number about 30% of the Lebanese population, although there is no accurate figure since the last census under French rule in 1932. At that time Christians constituted more than half of Lebanon’s population.

The country is now majority Muslim, but Christians still hold more political power than any other country in the region. By tradition, the position of Lebanese president is reserved for Maronite Catholics.

Coming from Türkiye, the Pope urged Lebanese leaders to establish peace and provide hope to the country’s people.

Many Lebanese citizens have fled the country since Lebanon’s financial collapse in 2019 and the devastating explosion at the port of Beirut the following year, which exposed state dysfunction and corruption. The Lebanese diaspora is overwhelmingly Christian, partly because many Western countries have welcomed them.

Pope Leo XIV visited on Monday Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon in nearby Harissa, a major pilgrimage site. They spoke about the future of the Church in Lebanon and heard from a priest, a nun and a domestic servant describe the suffering of Christians and Muslims during recent conflicts.

Yohanna Fuad Fahad, a priest from Lebanon’s north, described trying to help Syrian refugees who flooded across the border during Syria’s 14-year-long civil war, but he faced Lebanon’s economic crisis and was left with no electricity, running water or any way to make a living.

He said more refugees, frightened and poor, quietly arrived after rebel fighters overthrew the Bashar al-Assad regime last December. Father Yohana said he realized this only after seeing Syrian coins in the alms bowl at Sunday Mass. He said he was looking for people to help and said the church needed to reach out and support those victims.

Sister Dima, a nun, told of her decision to live in Balbak, a mostly Shia city in the Bekaa Valley, during the war between Israel and the terrorist group Hezbollah, to be able to care for needy Christian and Muslim families.

And a church volunteer and domestic worker from the Philippines, who gave her name only as Lauren, described a small family of foreign workers who were deliberately locked in a house by their employer who fled during the fighting. She says that after running away from home, they walked for three days with their newborn baby to reach a church for help.

“Through the mission of our church I have seen miracles…small acts of love that change lives,” he said.

The Pope, who appeared emotional, reminded his predecessor Pope Francis, who had stressed that Christians cannot remain indifferent to tragedy and suffering.

Pope Leo spoke about the need to provide opportunities to young people: “It is necessary, even amidst the debris of the world, which has its own painful failures, to offer them solid and viable prospects for rebirth and future development.”

no trip south

The papal convoy drove on newly paved roads – the same roads that had previously been abandoned due to Lebanon’s ongoing financial and economic crisis.

“They started work on the roads in 2018 and then stopped because of the economic crisis and the coronavirus lockdown and then everything else,” says Hanadi Moukawem, head of the municipality of Daruun-Harissa, just before the visit. He described the Pope’s visit here as a symbol of hope that better times will come.

On Tuesday, the Pope held a prayer vigil on Beirut’s waterfront near the site of the blast before concluding his visit.

His travels focused on Beirut and the north of the country. According to local church officials, the Vatican decided it was potentially too dangerous Visit the south of Lebanon where Israel has launched almost daily attacks despite a year-old ceasefire.

Hezbollah – the Lebanese Shia militia and political party – has maintained its fire since the ceasefire and is under intense pressure from the Lebanese government to give up its remaining weapons.

Many Christian villages along the border with Israel have suffered the same devastation as Muslim border villages, with their homes and infrastructure destroyed.

In the Lebanese village of Cana, where Jesus performed his first miracle of turning water into wine, Christians now constitute only 10 percent of the population. The first stop for many people leaving the country is the Lebanese capital.

“This has happened in stages since the 1950s,” says Chakib Haddad, a retired math teacher and former local church council member in Qana. “They go to Beirut to work in factories or other places. They sell their land here and buy apartments and that’s all.”