Pope Leo XIV is visiting holy sites in Lebanon on Monday, seeking to recognize the country’s religious pluralism and send a message to Christians not to abandon the region.
Over the past few decades, hundreds of thousands of Christians have left parts of the Middle East for good, driven by wars and the rise of Muslim extremists.
Leo arrived in Beirut on Sunday after a visit to Turkey that began last week. He challenged Lebanon’s political leaders to be true peacemakers and put their differences aside as he sought to give Lebanon’s long-suffering people a message of hope and bolster a crucial Christian community in the Middle East.
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Leo calls on Lebanese leaders to be peacemakers: Leo challenged Lebanon’s political leaders to put their differences aside as he sought to give Lebanon’s long-suffering people a message of hope and bolster a crucial Christian community in the Middle East. While he didn’t directly reference the recent war or the debate over weapons in his speech at the presidential palace, he acknowledged the hardships the Lebanese people have endured.Leo doubles down on insistence for 2-state solution to resolve Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Over the weekend, the pope was asked about his private talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan upon his arrival in Ankara and whether they discussed the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Leo confirmed they had, and said that Turkey had an “important role to play” in both conflicts, noting that Erdogan’s government had already helped facilitate low-level negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to end the war.The itinerary: Leo arrived first last week in Ankara, where he met with President Erdogan and gave a speech to the country’s diplomatic corps. He then moved on to Istanbul for three days of ecumenical and interfaith meetings. He then traveled to Lebanon, and wraps up his visit on Tuesday with a prayer at the site of the 2020 Beirut port blast and a Mass on the waterfront.