Leone XIV's legacy to Lebanon: to be a land of “encounter” and “Christian unity”

The surprising welcome of the Lebanese people, whom Leone XIV praised for the “simplicity” of their faith. They recognised him as a “man of God full of zeal and compassion”. Beirut's efforts to make peace with Israel (and the US). A land of encounter between Islam and Christianity, it must also become a pioneer of Christian unity.

Beirut (AsiaNews) - “Thank you for coming” is probably one of the phrases Leo XIV heard most often during his stay in Lebanon. For many, the welcome given to the Pope by the Lebanese people came as a surprise. The pontiff praised at length the ‘simplicity’ of our faith. In the Land of the Cedars, he must have rediscovered something of the faith of Peruvian peasants, that of a people who have not yet been contaminated by the aura of sophisticated intellectualism that characterises the West.

‘Wow! Thank you to Peru, and especially to Chicago, for shaping this man of God so well, full of zeal and compassion,’ wrote a retired engineer on Facebook who spent three days glued to the television. Neither Mother Marie Makhlouf, superior of the Sisters of the Cross, nor the two women who received the comfort of his embrace in Bkerké and at the port would say otherwise. Now Leo XIV knows Lebanon well, and we could see the happiness of the encounter on his face.

On 2 December, on the plane taking him back to Rome, the Pope shared some personal reflections that are also comments on his visit. He spoke of his favourite book, The Practice of the Presence of God by Frère Laurent de la Résurrection, a humble 17th-century French monk. ‘If there is no personal encounter with Jesus Christ, there will be ethnicism masquerading as Christianity,’ Pope Francis once said, speaking of peoples who call themselves Christians. But a personal encounter with Jesus Christ is not as common as one might think.

Leo XIV also spoke about the peacemaking efforts he is making with regard to Israel and the United States, either personally or through Vatican diplomacy. This concerns a possible escalation of the conflict between the Jewish state and Hezbollah. The pontiff also confirmed that he had read the open letter sent to him by the pro-Iranian party, to which he had essentially replied by inviting them to renounce arms and choose dialogue. This response was conveyed by Sheikh Ali Khatib, president of the Shiite Supreme Council, whom he met on 1 December during the interfaith summit and with whom, according to Nuncio Monsignor Paolo Borgia, he had a private conversation afterwards. ‘Peace,’ said Leo XIV during Mass on the Beirut seafront, ‘is both a goal and a means.’

The Pope also mentioned his desire to travel, after Lebanon, to Algeria, the homeland of St Augustine and a land of encounter between Islam and Christianity. It seems, therefore, that he carries this desire in his heart, like all his predecessors. Since the Second Vatican Council and the document Nostra Aetate, the universal Church has made constant efforts to promote dialogue between the Christian and Muslim worlds. These efforts have borne fruit in the joint declaration on universal brotherhood signed in Abu Dhabi in 2019 by Pope Francis and the Imam of al-Azhar, and in the encyclical Fratelli Tutti, which took up and developed its essence.

The ecumenical perspective

Finally, the pontiff spoke of the common ecumenical perspective on his pilgrimage to ancient Nicaea, the birthplace of the Creed, and to Lebanon. Here too, Leo XIV follows in the footsteps of his predecessors, particularly Benedict XVI. In fact, in 2012, the German pontiff delivered the apostolic exhortation resulting from the synod on the Middle East to the Eastern Churches from Lebanon, entrusting the Land of the Cedars, the heart of all Christians in the Middle East, with the task of “reuniting the scattered children of God in unity”.

It is ‘the one Church of Christ [that] expresses itself in the variety of liturgical, spiritual, cultural and disciplinary traditions of the six venerable Eastern Catholic Churches sui iuris, as well as in the Latin tradition,’ he said during the opening Mass of the synod in Rome in 2010. ‘It is this inner vision that guided me on my apostolic journeys to Turkey, the Holy Land - Jordan, Israel, Palestine - and Cyprus, where I was able to experience first-hand the joys and concerns of the Christian communities.’ Since then, his successor Pope Francis has made apostolic journeys to Cairo, Iraq and Bahrain.

However, in a Lebanon whose sovereignty had been destroyed by a Hezbollah totally subservient to Iran, at the mercy of an unscrupulous oligarchy and senseless internal rivalries between Christian leaders, the Maronite Church found itself at the time faced with a task that was beyond its capabilities. A burden perhaps too heavy, so much so that it prevented it from completing the mission originally entrusted to it.

After all, the Churches mentioned by Benedict XVI, due to a paralysing clericalism, still have to learn to respect each other, discern their respective charisms, listen to each other and work together. In this regard, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Patriarch of Jerusalem of the Latins - whose presence in Lebanon during the papal visit did not go unnoticed - said it well in light of what is happening in Gaza: ‘We are no longer called,’ the cardinal emphasised, ‘to build structures, but relationships.’ Lebanon, a land of encounter between Islam and Christianity, must also become a pioneer of Christian unity.