\n The congregation on this cool late November evening was modest in number but their voices rang out as they sang hymns \u2013 including one in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, the language Jesus is believed to have spoken.\n <\/p>\n
\n Christianity in Lebanon is almost as old as Christianity itself. Yet the community, with roots so deep in this land, increasingly feels its grip slipping. In recent decades many Christians have left, for the United States, Canada, Europe, South America, Australia and elsewhere.\n <\/p>\n
\n The last papal visit to Lebanon was in May 2012 by Benedict XVI. Since then, the Lebanese \u2013 Christian and Muslim alike \u2013 have been through a failed revolution, an economic collapse, the Covid-19 pandemic, the catastrophic Beirut port blast and another war with Israel.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Shia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/gettyimages-2223245650.jpg\")
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\n Lebanon has 18 officially recognized faiths and sects. Every event here has a sectarian angle. Pope Leo\u2019s visit is no exception.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey have become stronger than us,\u201d said Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Hanna, a woman in her seventies, as she left Mass at the monastery.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey, who?\u201d I asked.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe Shia,\u201d she replied, adding confidently, \u201cOf course, the Pope knows that.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Shia Muslims are now Lebanon\u2019s single largest sect. Once the country\u2019s hewers of wood and fetchers of water, the Shia have grown in number, wealth and power. That power is best embodied by Hezbollah, the armed group and now political party that fought Israel for decades, most recently following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, until a fragile ceasefire was brokered one year ago.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Shia pose the most potent challenge to Christian power in Lebanon, a fact not lost on anyone here. Yet nothing is simple. Hezbollah has formed coalitions with Christian parties in the past. Politics makes strange bedfellows.\n <\/p>\n
\n The first official papal visit to Lebanon was in May 1997 by John Paul II, when the country was recovering from the ravages of the 1975-1990 civil war. Though still saddled by an Israeli occupation in the south and a Syrian occupation in the rest of the country, it was a time of optimism. Many of those who had fled the civil war (and wars with Israel) were venturing back, aid and investments were pouring in. Beirut was undergoing a mad, haphazard building boom. A new, reinvigorated Lebanon seemed to be rising from the ashes.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Hezbollah](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/gettyimages-2248103515.jpg\")
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\n After the travails of the last decade, however, that era of hope feels like a distant memory.\n <\/p>\n
\n The economy is still struggling. Official corruption and mismanagement are still the rule rather than the exception. Yes, with the ceasefire one might conclude that active war with Israel is over, but that\u2019s an illusion.\n <\/p>\n
\n On an almost daily basis, Israeli warplanes and drones strike<\/a> Lebanon. Israeli officials claim Hezbollah has not fully withdrawn from its positions along the southern border and that it is re-arming and regrouping. Israel still occupies five strategic locations on the Lebanese side of the border.\n <\/p>\n