Pope Leo XIV wrapped up his go to to Turkey on Sunday earlier than heading to Lebanon, the place he aimed to carry a message of hope to its long-suffering individuals and bolster a vital Christian neighborhood within the Center East. He preached related 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, non secular 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 individuals all through historical past, typically amid tragic circumstances.” It was a reference to the World Warfare I-era slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.
Pope Francis had termed the bloodbath a “genocide,” angering Turkey, which denies a genocide happened. 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 grow to be a preferred 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,” stated 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 typically quoted St. John Paul II, who in 1989 stated that Lebanon was greater than only a nation. It was a “message” — a message of fraternity and coexistence. Underneath 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 few 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 dwelling.
“The Holy Father is coming at a really tough second for Lebanon and for our area,” stated Bishop George, archbishop of the Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Beirut. Lebanese are anxious concerning the future, he stated, and nonetheless worry a doable return to all-out warfare with Israel.
“On this tough second, the pope’s go to is an indication of hope. It reveals that Lebanon will not be forgotten,” he instructed 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, gas and drugs.
One other catastrophe adopted in 2020, when a whole lot of tons of ammonium nitrate improperly saved on the Beirut port detonated in an explosion that blasted by means of the encompassing neighborhoods, killing 218 individuals, wounding hundreds extra and inflicting billions of {dollars} in injury.
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 have been enraged by the blast, which seemed to be the results of authorities negligence, approaching high 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 could be no peace with out reality and justice.
One other essential second will come when Leo meets with younger Lebanese. He is anticipated to present 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 warfare in Gaza, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah entered right into a low-level battle with Israel that escalated right into a full-fledged warfare in September 2024, killing greater than 4,000 individuals 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 goal to cease Hezbollah from rebuilding.
The pope “is coming to bless us and for the sake of peace,” stated Farah Saadeh, a Beirut resident strolling on town’s seaside promenade. “We’ve 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 get together with the most important parliamentary bloc, the Lebanese Forces, is an opponent of Hezbollah and has criticized the group for pulling the nation right into a warfare with Israel.
In neighboring Syria, a whole lot of hundreds of Christians fled through the nation’s 14 years of civil warfare.
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 trying 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 hitch 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,” stated 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 individuals and to really feel that we’re current as jap Christians and that we must be on this place.”
