Pope Leo XIV’s first foreign trip as pontiff has brought the world’s attention squarely onto Lebanon, a small but symbolically powerful country at the heart of the Middle East. Arriving in Beirut on Sunday, November 30, 2025, just a week after Israeli airstrikes rattled the capital, the Pope’s visit comes at a time of heightened tensions and uncertainty for the region’s Christian communities. His journey, which began in Turkey on November 27, has been marked by a careful blend of diplomacy, spiritual encouragement, and pointed calls for peace.
Lebanon, with its unique tapestry of religious sects and a history of both coexistence and conflict, has long held a special place in Vatican diplomacy. About a third of the country’s five million people are Christian, making it the Middle East’s largest Christian population by percentage. The nation’s power-sharing arrangement, established after independence from France in 1943, ensures that the president is always a Maronite Christian, the parliament speaker a Shiite Muslim, and the prime minister a Sunni Muslim. According to the Associated Press, this system, while sometimes criticized for fostering deadlock, has protected minorities and given Christians a significant role in public life.
Pope Leo’s itinerary in Lebanon has been rich with symbolism and outreach. On Monday, December 1, he visited the Tomb of St. Charbel Makhlouf at the Monastery of St. Maron in Annaya, a site revered by both Christians and Muslims and a destination for tens of thousands of pilgrims every year. Later that day, he traveled to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon, another locus of interfaith devotion north of Beirut. These visits, as AP reported, underscore the Pope’s message of religious pluralism and his encouragement to Christians not to abandon the region despite mounting pressures.
"He brings hope when the Lebanese feel abandoned and we feel uplifted," said Patriarch Bechara al-Rahi, leader of the Maronite Catholic Church, in an interview with the BBC. The Pope’s presence has indeed been a national event: Lebanon declared a two-day holiday for all faiths, and his motorcade was greeted with a sea of Lebanese, Vatican, and even Hezbollah flags. In a rare gesture, Hezbollah, the Shia Muslim political party and militia, extended a "full welcome" and "deep appreciation" for the Pope’s "honourable presence." The group’s open letter, as cited by the BBC, highlighted the broad resonance of the visit across Lebanon’s deeply divided society.
Yet the Pope’s message has not been confined to ceremonial gestures. At an interreligious gathering in central Beirut, he challenged Lebanon’s political leaders to be "true peacemakers" and to put aside their differences for the good of the nation. "The future of humanity is at stake," he warned, echoing comments he made days earlier in Turkey, where he denounced the use of religion to justify war or fundamentalism. "We must strongly reject the use of religion for justifying war, violence, or any form of fundamentalism or fanaticism," he declared at an event marking 1,700 years since the Council of Nicaea in Iznik, as reported by the BBC.
The Pope’s diplomatic style has drawn comparisons with his predecessor, Pope Francis. Where Francis was known for passionate, sometimes spontaneous remarks, Leo XIV has so far been measured, gentle, and deliberate. Observers noted moments of visible emotion during his visit, particularly at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Istanbul, where he appeared to be holding back tears in front of a minority Christian congregation. Six months into his papacy, Pope Leo seems acutely aware of the gravity of his role, balancing the expectations of over a billion Catholics against the realities of a fractured and often volatile world.
Lebanon’s Christians, for their part, have demonstrated remarkable resilience. While hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled Iraq, Syria, and other parts of the Middle East in recent decades—often driven out by war or the rise of extremist groups—many Lebanese Christians have chosen to stay, clinging to their ancestral homeland and preserving their traditions. Monsignor Abdo Abou Kassm, director of the Catholic Center for Information, told the AP, "There is a democratic system where people can express their opinions freely without getting killed, oppressed or sent to exile. You can live freely with dignity in Lebanon."
The country’s sectarian system, while flawed, has helped ensure that Christians maintain influence in politics and society. Maronite Catholics are the largest Christian group, but Greek Orthodox and other denominations also hold key posts, including the army command and leadership of major security agencies. Since the 1989 Taif Agreement that ended Lebanon’s civil war, parliamentary and cabinet seats have been divided equally between Christians and Muslims, a rare arrangement in the Arab world.
Still, the nation’s Christians are not immune to the region’s turbulence. The 2023 Israel-Hezbollah war, which killed around 4,000 people and left large swathes of southern Lebanon in ruins, has fueled calls among Christian leaders for the country to adopt a policy of neutrality. Cardinal Bechara Rai, head of the Maronite Church, has been among those urging Lebanon to avoid becoming a battleground for regional and international powers. Christian legislator Camille Dory Chamoun, head of the National Liberal Party, told the AP, "Our Lebanese identity is as important as our Christian identity." He added, "The most important thing is to stop these conflicts that are extremely harmful. We have seen their consequences, and we have seen that we are paying a very high price for other people’s wars on our land."
Pope Leo’s visit has not been without its critics. Some Lebanese, especially those in southern villages hardest hit by recent fighting, have expressed disappointment that the Pope did not visit their communities directly. Geryes Jabbour from the Christian village of Sarda told the BBC, "No one has even asked about us. We are worn out, we have been set back decades, but we are not even on the Pope's mind." Such voices highlight the limits of even the most well-intentioned papal diplomacy in a country still reeling from war and economic collapse.
On Tuesday, December 2, Pope Leo is scheduled to conclude his visit with a prayer at the site of the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion and a public Mass on the city’s waterfront. These final acts are intended to honor the memory of those lost and to offer a message of hope and perseverance to a nation still struggling to heal.
Through his words and presence, Pope Leo XIV has sought to remind Lebanon—and the world—of the enduring strength of faith and the possibility of coexistence, even in the most challenging of circumstances.
