Pope Leo XIV wrapped up his go to to Turkey on Sunday earlier than heading to Lebanon, the place he aimed to deliver a message of hope to its long-suffering folks and bolster an important Christian neighborhood within the Center East. He preached comparable messages of peace and unity, inside his personal Catholic neighborhood and extra broadly, throughout his earlier stops in Turkey.
Leo had two key appointments in Istanbul earlier than flying to Beirut: a prayer on the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral and a divine liturgy with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, religious chief of the world’s Orthodox Christians, whose invitation to commemorate an essential Christian anniversary was the impetus for Leo’s go to.
Leo processed into the Armenian cathedral in a cloud of incense as a choir chanted. He praised the “brave Christian witness of the Armenian folks all through historical past, usually amid tragic circumstances.” It was a reference to the World Struggle I-era slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.
Pope Francis had termed the bloodbath a “genocide,” angering Turkey, which denies a genocide occurred. Leo was extra diplomatic in his phrases on Turkish soil.
Whereas in Turkey, the pope additionally visited Istanbul’s Blue Mosque, an Ottoman-era historic construction that has develop into a well-liked web site for vacationers.
“The Pope visited the Mosque in silence, in a spirit of reflection and listening, with profound respect for the place and the religion of these gathered there in prayer,” mentioned the Holy See’s press workplace in a press release. He was accompanied by Turkish Tradition and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, the Provincial Mufti of Istanbul Emrullah Tuncel, and the Grand Imam of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (the Blue Mosque) Kurra Hafız Fatih Kaya.
Domenico Stinellis / AP
On the second leg of his maiden papal journey, Leo will go to Lebanon at a precarious second for the small Mediterranean nation after years of successive crises. He’s fulfilling a promise of Pope Francis, who had wished to go to for years, however was unable to as his well being worsened.
Francis usually quoted St. John Paul II, who in 1989 mentioned that Lebanon was greater than only a nation. It was a “message” — a message of fraternity and coexistence. Below Lebanon’s power-sharing system, the nation’s president is at all times a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliamentary speaker a Shiite.
Lebanon, a Muslim-majority nation the place a couple of third of the inhabitants is Christian, has at all times been a precedence for the Vatican, a bulwark for Christians all through the area. After years of battle, Christian communities that date from the time of the Apostles have shrunk.
Leo was anticipated to attempt to encourage Lebanese who consider their leaders have failed them, and to encourage Lebanese Christians to remain or, if they’ve already moved overseas, to come back residence.
“The Holy Father is coming at a really troublesome second for Lebanon and for our area,” mentioned Bishop George, archbishop of the Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Beirut. Lebanese are frightened in regards to the future, he mentioned, and nonetheless worry a potential return to all-out conflict with Israel.
“On this troublesome second, the pope’s go to is an indication of hope. It reveals that Lebanon just isn’t forgotten,” he advised reportersbefore the go to.
In 2019, the nation’s forex and banking system collapsed and lots of Lebanese noticed their financial savings evaporate. The monetary disaster drove shortages of electrical energy, gasoline and drugs.
One other catastrophe adopted in 2020, when tons of of tons of ammonium nitrate improperly saved on the Beirut port detonated in an explosion that blasted via the encircling neighborhoods, killing 218 folks, wounding 1000’s extra and inflicting billions of {dollars} in harm.
The spotlight of Leo’s Lebanese go to will come on his final day, Dec. 2, when he spends time in silent prayer on the web site of the blast on Aug. 4, 2020, and meets with a few of its victims.
Lebanese residents had been enraged by the blast, which gave the impression to be the results of authorities negligence, approaching prime of the financial disaster. However an investigation has repeatedly stalled, and 5 years on, no official has been convicted.
There are hopes amongst Lebanese that Leo will demand accountability from Lebanon’s political class and demand that there may be no peace with out reality and justice.
One other essential second will come when Leo meets with younger Lebanese. He is anticipated to provide them phrases of encouragement, amid the decades-long flight overseas, whereas additionally acknowledging their disillusionment over the failures of generations earlier than them.
After the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the conflict in Gaza, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah entered right into a low-level battle with Israel that escalated right into a full-fledged conflict in September 2024, killing greater than 4,000 folks in Lebanon and inflicting widespread destruction.
Regardless of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire that nominally ended the battle two months later, Israel continues to launch near-daily airstrikes that it says purpose to cease Hezbollah from rebuilding.
The pope “is coming to bless us and for the sake of peace,” mentioned Farah Saadeh, a Beirut resident strolling on the town’s seaside promenade. “We now have to attend and see what is going to occur after he leaves, and we hope nothing goes to occur after his departure.”
Earlier than Leo’s arrival, Hezbollah urged the pope to precise his “rejection to injustice and aggression” that the nation is being subjected to. It was a reference to the Israeli strikes. The group additionally urged its supporters to line up alongside the street the papal convoy will take from the airport to the presidential palace to pay their respects.
Hezbollah — a primarily Shiite group — has allied with a number of Christian political teams within the nation, together with the Free Patriotic Motion and Marada Motion.
Nevertheless, the Christian social gathering with the biggest parliamentary bloc, the Lebanese Forces, is an opponent of Hezbollah and has criticized the group for pulling the nation right into a conflict with Israel.
In neighboring Syria, tons of of 1000’s of Christians fled through the nation’s 14 years of civil conflict.
The nation’s former autocratic President Bashar Assad was ousted in an offensive led by Islamist insurgents final December. Since then, there have been outbreaks of sectarian violence and a few assaults on non secular minorities, together with a suicide assault on a church in Damascus in June.
Whereas the brand new authorities has condemned assaults on minorities, many accuse it of wanting the opposite method or being unable to regulate allied armed teams.
A delegation of some 300 Syrian Christians, headed by a Greek Melkite Catholic priest, was set to journey to Lebanon to affix a gathering between Leo and youth teams and pray in a public mass on Beirut’s waterfront.
“We’re in want of somebody just like the pope to come back and provides us hope as Christians” at a time of “worry of an unknown future,” mentioned 24-year-old Dima Awwad, one of many delegation members. “We want that the pope would come to go to Syria as he visited Lebanon, to reassure the folks and to really feel that we’re current as jap Christians and that we must be on this place.”
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