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Pope Leo XIV prayed at the tomb of a revered Lebanese saint on Monday Christians And Muslims Because he brought the message of peace, hope and religious coexistence to the conflict-ridden region.
As Leo’s covered popemobile moved through the rain thousands of cheering Lebanese accompanied his convoy toward Ananya, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) away. beirutsome lebanese and waved Vatican As he proceeded, flags and flower petals and rice were thrown at his car in a gesture of welcome.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit the hilltop Monastery of St. Maroun overlooking the sea to pray at the tomb of St. Charbel Makhlouf, a Lebanese Maronite monk who lived from 1828 to 1898. Believers have credited him with miraculous healings that occurred after people prayed for his intercession.
Leo prayed silently in the dark tomb, and offered a lamp as a gift of light for the monastery.
“Sisters and brothers, today we entrust the needs of the Church, Lebanon and the world to the intercession of Saint Charbel,” Leo said in French. “For the world, we ask for peace. We pray for it especially for Lebanon and the entire Levant.”
The visit to Leo’s tomb, the first by a Pope, kicked off a busy day for the first American Pope in history. He was given a warm welcome by the nuns and priests at Our Lady of Lebanon Sanctuary in Harissa, a city north of Beirut.
There, Leo urged church workers to provide hope to their flocks, and especially the youth, amid the injustices of life.
“It is necessary, even amid the wreckage of a world that has its own painful failures, to be offered solid and viable prospects for rebirth and future development,” he said amid cheers and slogans of “Viva il Papa” (long live the Pope).
In the afternoon, the Pope was to chair an interfaith gathering with Lebanon’s Christian and Muslim leaders in the capital Beirut.
Message of peace in times of unrest
There, Leo was expected to present his core message of peace and Christian-Muslim co-existence to Lebanon and beyond at a time when the conflict in Gaza and political tensions in Lebanon are worse than they have been in years. His visit comes at a difficult time for the small Mediterranean country after years of economic crisis and political gridlock, hit by the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
The Rev. Youssef Nasr, secretary general of Catholic schools in Lebanon, who was on hand to welcome Leo at Our Lady of Lebanon Basilica in Harissa, a city north of Beirut, said, “As Lebanese, we need this visit after all the wars, crises and despair we have lived through.” “The Pope’s visit gives Lebanese a new incentive to move forward and remain connected to their country.”
More recently, Lebanon has been deeply divided over calls to disarm the Lebanese terrorist group and political party Hezbollah after fighting a war with Israel last year that has caused heavy damage to the country.
Leo was traveling through Lebanon in a closed Popemobile, unlike previous pontiffs, Pope FrancisWho gave up bullet-proof papal mobiles during his 12-year papal tenure. Lebanese soldiers were deployed on both sides of the road along the route of his convoy.
Leo was to end the day at a rally for Lebanese youth in Bkarki, the seat of the Maronite Church, where he is expected to encourage them to persevere despite Lebanon’s many challenges and not leave the country like many others.
Appeal to Christians to stop
Leo arrived in Lebanon on Sunday from Türkiye where he began his first trip as Pope. In his opening speech, Leo challenged Lebanon’s political leaders to work past their differences and become true peacemakers, while also specifically urging Lebanese Christians to stay in the country.
Today, about a third of Lebanon’s 5 million people are Christian, giving the small country on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea the largest percentage of Christians in the Middle East.
Since independence from France, a power-sharing agreement requires the president to be a Maronite Christian, making Lebanon the only Arab country with a Christian head of state.
Lebanon’s Christian community has struggled in its ancestral homeland, even as the rise of Islamic State has driven an exodus from Apostolic communities in Iraq and Syria. While Christian migration to Lebanon is slowing after a major flight during the civil war, emigration remains a concern for the Vatican, which views the Christian presence here as a bulwark for the Church in the region.
“We’ll stay here,” said May Nunn, a pilgrim waiting for Leo outside the monastery of St. Charbel. “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 to Australia to welcome Leo and join him in praying for peace, as well as strengthening the Christian presence in the country.
“Even though we live abroad, we feel we need to support young people and families to stay here,” he said as he waited for the Pope to meet with clergy in Harissa, north of Beirut. “We don’t like to see more and more people, especially Christians, leaving Lebanon.”
Tarabay said the Lebanese were grateful that Leo decided to come on his first visit as pope.
“They decided to say we have people who are suffering, we have young people who are pretty much on the verge of despair,” he said. Leo, he said, decided: “I have to go over there and tell them ‘You’re not forgotten.'”
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Winfield and Chehayab contributed from Beirut; Abby Sewell contributed on behalf of Harissa.
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Associated Press religion coverage is supported by the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for this content.