Pope Francis 'sentinel' of the values of unity and diversity in Lebanon

Civil and religious leaders have paid homage to the memory of the Argentinean pontiff. Under his leadership, the Church completed the efforts begun by predecessors to bring Islam and Christianity closer together in the face of escalating fundamentalism. From the banking crisis to the explosion at the port of Beirut, the pope's closeness in the face of the great tragedies in the country's recent history.

Beirut (AsiaNews) - Surprised by his sudden death, civil officials and Church leaders in Lebanon paid homage in unison to the memory of Pope Francis who died on Easter Monday. Three days of national mourning were proclaimed on the occasion. President Joseph Aoun, whose election in January 2025 was welcomed by the Vatican, will travel to Rome for the funeral scheduled for Saturday, 26 April. "We will never forget his repeated calls to protect Lebanon and preserve its identity and diversity," President Aoun wrote on X (formerly Twitter). Parliament Speaker Nabih Berry regretted that Francis left "at a time when humanity is in dire need of the word that unites". The Shia leader also praised "his profound sense of justice". At the same time, the Lebanese particularly appreciated the pontiff's repeated appeals for an end to the war in Gaza.

To defend the diversity in Lebanon and the harmony associated with the coexistence of Christians and Muslims, the Vatican and Pope Francis himself have pursued a policy inaugurated by John Paul II. At the internal ecclesial level, the pontiff has done his best to help the Eastern Churches emerge from their pastoral isolation. To this end, he went so far as to invite the Eastern Patriarchs to the Vatican for a day of recollection and prayer on 2 July 2021. During the meeting, the pope deplored "the missed opportunities on the road to brotherhood, reconciliation and full unity" of Eastern Christians. "The future will be peaceful only if it is common," Francis continued, also issuing a warning to the political class that puts its own interests before the common good.

In 2023, his knee problems were partly used as a pretext to cancel a visit to Lebanon. In fact, an end-of-reign atmosphere - including the end of Michel Aoun's presidential term - had soured relations between Christian political forces, so much so that the Vatican was dissuaded from making a visit that would have been seen - or exploited - as a victory of one camp over the other. These divisions persisted during the trip to the Land of the Cedars by the Vatican Secretary of State, Card. Pietro Parolin, in 2024 and prevented Christian political leaders from meeting all together in the Maronite patriarchal see of Bkerké.

Since 2013 at Lebanon's bedside

On a pastoral level, Pope Francis has shown his personal concern for Lebanon since his election in 2013. One of the most tangible signs of this concern was when he entrusted the meditations of the first Way of the Cross of his pontificate to a group of young Lebanese under the direction of Card. Béshara Raï, head of the Maronite Church.

The messages addressed to the Country of the Cedars multiplied as the nation went through crises; particularly since 2019, the date of the banking collapse that would deprive ordinary citizens and institutions of their funds and savings, plunging hundreds of thousands of Lebanese into hardship or poverty.

A month after the dramatic explosion in the port of Beirut on 4 August 2020, the pope called for 'a universal day of prayer and fasting for Lebanon' and sent Card. Parolin to visit Lebanon. And during the all-out war launched by Israel against Hezbollah in October and November 2024, the pontiff regularly asked his representative in Lebanon, Apostolic Nuncio Monsignor Paolo Borgia, to be present among the affected Christian populations in southern Lebanon.

In the wake of predecessors

On the theological and diplomatic front, under Pope Francis the Catholic Church has completed the efforts begun by his predecessors to bring Islam and Christianity closer together at a time of growing fundamentalism. In particular, the pontiff succeeded in meeting the two great religious authorities of Sunni and Shia Islam: the Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad el-Tayyeb (in 2016), and the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in March 2021, on the occasion of his apostolic trip to Iraq.

This work was initiated in 1995 by Pope John Paul II, with the convocation of a special assembly of the Synod of Bishops dedicated to Lebanon. By developing the post-synodal apostolic exhortation, the great Polish pontiff laid the cornerstone for a model of multicultural society offered to both East and West. Unfortunately, the 'satellitisation' of Lebanon by Syria, then Iran, and Israel's occupation of part of its territory, would later frustrate all efforts of Islamic-Christian cooperation to rebuild a friendly Lebanon damaged by civil war.

The Apostolic Exhortation 'A New Hope for Lebanon' (1997) was followed by a second assembly. This one took place under the pontificate of Benedict XVI and was dedicated to the entire Middle East. Once again, Lebanon was chosen to launch the post-synodal exhortation. The calls for Christian unity and Islamic-Christian brotherhood were more fervent than ever. Nonetheless, they came late: the synergy of the Eastern Churches was slow to emerge and a great geopolitical change was in the offing: the 'Damascus Spring' would soon begin to be drowned in blood, marking the beginning of a long civil war (2013); at the same time, in August of the following year, the radical jihadist group called the Islamic State (IS, formerly Isis) was preparing to establish a Caliphate over much of Iraqi and Syrian territory, causing the expulsion or voluntary exodus of almost 120,000 Christians from the Nineveh plain.

However, Francis has never shown himself defeated in the face of these adversities. On the contrary, the pontiff launched a powerful counter-attack by visiting Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank) and Jordan in May 2014. His pontificate was then marked by an unprecedented rapprochement with al-Azhar, crowned in April 2017 by a visit to Cairo in which a number of significant resolutions emerged: among others, the one calling for the abolition of 'dhimmitude', a neologism for the attitude of submission of non-Muslims to the faithful of Islam; and again, the introduction of the principle of civil equality between Christians and Muslims in Islamic societies.

In February 2019, Pope Francis chose an Islamic country, Abu Dhabi, a symbol of the Gulf States' openness to modernity, to launch with the Imam of Al-Azhar the 'Document on Human Fraternity', a founding text in Muslim-Christian relations. Nevertheless, the reception of this Declaration, followed by an encyclical along the same lines, Brothers All, remains slow and laboured. It is not for this reason that it is considered in vain and many hope that it will inspire the new Constitution, currently being drafted in Syria.