Pope Leo XIV met Lebanon's Christian and Muslim religious leaders on Monday, calling for peace in the region and praising the country's interfaith coexistence.
The pontiff was welcomed by spiritual leaders on his first day in the country, where thousands of Lebanese lined his motorcade route in Beirut despite steady rain.
The interfaith meeting in Martyr's Square brought together Lebanon's Christian patriarchs and Sunni, Shiite and Druze spiritual leaders.
After listening to hymns and readings from the Bible and Quran, Pope Leo XIV praised Lebanon’s tradition of religious tolerance as a beacon for “the divine gift of peace” in the region.
“In an age when coexistence can seem like a distant dream, the people of Lebanon, while embracing different religions, stand as a powerful reminder that fear, distrust and prejudice do not have the final word, and that unity, reconciliation, and peace are possible,” he said.
The spiritual leaders planted an olive sapling at the end of the event.
Lebanon's civil war from 1975 to 1990 was largely fought along religious and ethnic lines.
A visit at a tense time
The visit comes at a tense time for Lebanon after years of conflict, economic crises and political deadlock, punctuated by the 2020 Beirut port blast.
“We, as Lebanese, need this visit after all the wars, crises and despair that we have lived through,” said Reverend Youssef Nasr, secretary-general of Catholic Schools in Lebanon. “The pope’s visit gives a new push to the Lebanese to rise and cling to their country.”
Lebanon has been divided over calls for Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group and political party, to disarm after fighting a war with Israel last year. Despite a ceasefire, Israel has carried out almost daily airstrikes targeting Hezbollah members.
The Grand Sunni Muslim Mufti of Lebanon, Abdul-Latif Derian, welcomed Pope Leo XIV at the interfaith event and recalled relations forged by his predecessor Pope Francis. He cited the 2019 joint statement on human fraternity signed by Pope Francis and the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayeb.
"Lebanon is the land of this message," Derian said.
A plea for Christians to stay
Christians make up around a third of Lebanon's 5 million people, giving the country the largest percentage of Christians in the Middle East.
A power-sharing agreement in place since independence from France calls for the president to be a Maronite Christian, making Lebanon the only Arab country with a Christian head of state.
The Vatican sees Christian presence as key to the church in the region.
Lebanese Christians have remained in their homeland despite an exodus following the civil war.
The so-called Islamic State group, defeated in 2019 after losing its last stronghold in Syria, forced Christians from Iraq and Syria to flee in large numbers.
