BEIRUT, Lebanon — Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem welcomes Pope Leo XIV’s upcoming visit to Lebanon, saying he has tasked members of the Iran-backed terror group with delivering a letter to the pontiff.
“I welcome the Pope’s visit to Lebanon,” Qassem says in a televised speech, adding that he “tasked members of our political council with visiting the Papal Embassy and presenting a letter from Hezbollah to the Pope, which will also be published in the media.”
After visiting Turkey, Leo is due to arrive in Lebanon on Sunday for a three-day trip that includes an open-air mass at Beirut’s waterfront that organizers expect to draw 120,000 people, as well as an interreligious meeting in the city center.
“We welcome this visit at this pivotal moment, and we pray that the Holy Father will contribute to spreading peace in Lebanon, liberating it, ending the (Israeli) aggression, and standing by it and by the oppressed, as we have always known him to do,” Qassem says.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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