Pope Leo XIV landed in Lebanon Sunday, where he aimed to bring a message of hope to its long-suffering people and bolster a crucial Christian community in the Middle East.
He arrived in Lebanon at a precarious moment for the small Mediterranean country after years of successive crises. He is fulfilling a promise of Pope Francis, who had wanted to visit for years, but was unable to as his health worsened.
Lebanon is the second leg of Leo's first official foreign trip after he first visited Türkiye.
Lebanon, which has the largest share of Christians in the Middle East, has been rocked by the spillover of the Gaza conflict, as Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah went to war, culminating in a devastating Israeli offensive.
Leaders in Lebanon, which hosts 1 million Syrian and Palestinian refugees and is also struggling to recover from years of economic crisis, are worried Israel will dramatically escalate its strikes in coming months. Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Friday that he hoped Leo's visit would help bring an end to Israeli attacks.
Lebanon's diverse communities have also welcomed the papal trip, with leading Druze cleric Sheikh Sami Abi al-Muna saying Lebanon "needs the glimmer of hope represented by this visit".
POPE VISITING FIVE LEBANESE CITIES AND TOWNS
Leo, a relative unknown on the world stage before becoming pope in May, is being closely watched as he makes his first speeches overseas and interacts for the first time with people outside mainly Catholic Italy. On Saturday, Leo visited Istanbul's famed Blue Mosque, in his first visit as pope to a Muslim place of worship. He removed his shoes in a sign of respect but did not pray at the mosque as planned, which appeared to surprise Vatican officials.
The pope attended an Orthodox Christian liturgy on Sunday morning led by Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world's 260 million Orthodox Christians.
In remarks during the service, which was filled with Greek chants, Bartholomew said the world "expects a unified message of hope from Christians unequivocally condemning war and violence".
"We cannot be complicit in the bloodshed taking place in Ukraine and other parts of the world," said the patriarch. Leo, 70 and in good health, has a crowded itinerary in Lebanon, visiting five cities and towns from Sunday to Tuesday, when he returns to Rome. Leo will not travel to the south, the target of Israeli strikes.
His schedule includes a prayer at the site of a 2020 chemical explosion at the Beirut port that killed 200 people and caused billions of dollars' worth of damage. He will also lead an outdoor Mass on the Beirut waterfront and visit a psychiatric hospital, one of the few mental health facilities in Lebanon, where carers and residents are eagerly anticipating his arrival.
