Pope criticizes anti-Muslim ‘fears’ in Europe, US

Pope Leo XIV says cooperation between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon should be an example for Europe and the United States, criticizing anti-migrant activists who stoke “fears” of Islam.

The 70-year-old pope speaks to reporters on the plane at the end of his visit to Turkey and Lebanon — his first trip outside of Italy since becoming head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May.

Leo says anti-Muslim sentiment is “oftentimes generated by people who are against immigration and trying to keep out people who may be from another country, another religion, another race.”

He says his visit to Lebanon is intended to show “that dialogue and friendship between Muslims and Christians is possible.”

Leo says stories he heard during the trip of Christians and Muslims helping each other were “lessons… that we should perhaps be a little less fearful.”

Lebanon was mired in a years-long civil war that pitted Christian and Muslim fighters against each other, and the country’s multiconfessional system frequently enters political paralysis.

The US-born pope spent two decades in Peru as a missionary within the Augustinian order.

He has been critical of growing nationalist sentiment in Europe and the United States and has called for an end to the “inhuman treatment” of migrants under US President Donald Trump.

He has also exhorted followers to reject an “exclusionary mindset” that he said had led to nationalism around the world.

Leo has said the Catholic Church “must open the borders between peoples and break down the barriers between class and race.”