Pope Leo to end first foreign trip with silent prayer at Beirut port blast site
Pontiff will also lead Mass along waterfront for an expected 100,000 people as he wraps up three-day visit to Lebanon, during which he strove to bring message of peace
Pope Leo XIV was set to offer a silent prayer at the site of the August 2020 Beirut port explosion as he wraps up his first foreign trip to Turkey and Lebanon on Tuesday.
He was also expected to meet with relatives of some of the 218 victims of the blast. The explosion tore through Beirut and did billions of dollars in damage after hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate detonated in a warehouse.
No official has been convicted in a judicial investigation that has been repeatedly obstructed, angering Lebanese for whom the blast was just the latest crisis after decades of corruption and financial crimes. When he arrived in Lebanon on Sunday, Leo urged the country’s political leaders to pursue the truth as a means of peace and reconciliation in the country.
The pontiff carried a message of hope, particularly to young people in Lebanon, whose faith in their beleaguered country has dwindled.
His visit brought a welcome distraction to a land still reeling from a war with Israel last year, with many fearing a renewal of hostilities.
The American pope opened his final day with a visit to the De La Croix hospital, which specializes in care for people with psychological problems, and was expected to close with a Mass along the Beirut waterfront before returning to Rome.
Yasmine Chidiac, who was hoping to catch sight of Pope Leo on Monday, said the trip “has brought a smile back to our faces.”
More than 120,000 people have registered to attend the mass near Beirut’s waterfront.
Leo, a relative unknown on the world stage before becoming pope in May, has been closely watched as he made his first speeches overseas and interacted for the first time with people outside mainly Catholic Italy.
On Monday, he presided over a gathering of Lebanon’s Christian and Muslim spiritual leaders, celebrating the country’s interfaith coexistence as a potent message of peace in the conflict-plagued region.
He called Christian, Sunni and Shiite Muslim, and Druze leaders to show that people of different traditions “can live together and build a country united by respect and dialogue.”
Leo also got a rock star welcome from thousands of Lebanese youth in Bkerke, the seat of the Maronite church, calling on them to build “a new future.”
“You have the enthusiasm to change the course of history,” he told around 15,000 young Lebanese.
Lebanon, which has the largest proportion of Christians in the Middle East, has been rocked by the spillover of the Gaza conflict after Hezbollah provoked war with Israel, culminating in a devastating Israeli offensive that decimated the Iran-backed terror group.
The country, which hosts 1 million Syrian and Palestinian refugees, is also struggling to overcome a severe economic crisis after decades of profligate spending sent the economy into a tailspin in late 2019.
The Times of Israel Community.