Pope Leo XIV’s visit rekindles hope in war- and crisis-battered Lebanon

BEIRUT (AP) – Mireille Khoury lit a candle next to a portrait of her late son, Elias, surrounded by images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, just as she does every evening when she returns to her Beirut apartment after work.

Elias was only 15 when he died in the August 2020 explosion at the Beirut port that blasted through surrounding neighborhoods in the Lebanese capital. Since then Khoury has been among the families who have convened monthly protests calling for justice for the 218 people killed when hundreds of tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate detonated.

Their numbers have dwindled as the investigation has stalled and hopes of accountability have faded. But the upcoming visit of Pope Leo XIV to Lebanon has rekindled a glimmer of hope for Khoury and many others in the small, crisis-battered country.

“We need a lot of prayers, and we need a miracle for this country to continue,” said Khoury, who is set to join the pontiff in a silent prayer at the site of the port explosion on the last day of his visit to Lebanon.

The visit set to begin on Sunday comes as part of Pope Leo’s first official foreign trip and as the fulfillment of a promise made by his predecessor, Pope Francis, to visit Lebanon, a Muslim-majority country where about a third of the population is Christian. Leo will also visit Turkey.

The fourth visit of a pope to Lebanon, it sends a powerful message of support at a time when regional instability and deepening internal crises have left the country in a precarious situation.

Since 2019, Lebanon has been battered by political unrest, the collapse of its currency and banking system, the port explosion and, most recently, a war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. The war decimated large swaths of southern and eastern Lebanon, leaving more than 4,000 dead, including hundreds of civilians, and causing an estimated $11 billion worth of destruction.

To many Lebanese, it feels like divine intervention is the only solution for their country.

In the village of Dardghaya, a mixed community of Christians and Shiite Muslims in southern Lebanon, about a dozen worshippers gathered for Mass on a recent Sunday in a small basement room. Images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and St. George – the church’s namesake – stared down from freshly painted white walls as a small girl swung an incense burner.

Above them, the town’s century-old Greek Melkite church was still in ruins after being hit by an Israeli strike during last year’s Israel-Hezbollah war.

Despite a U.S. brokered ceasefire that took effect in November 2024, Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes in southern Lebanon – and, occasionally, in the suburbs of the capital – that it says aim to stop Hezbollah from rebuilding. The precarious situation has dissuaded many former congregants from returning to Dardghaya.

The church’s priest, Father Maurice el Khoury, said he feels “a great hope” that Pope Leo’s visit “will bring about a radical change in Lebanon’s trajectory.”

“We don’t want to say that the pope’s visit is only for the Christians,” el Khoury said. “The pope’s visit is a blessing and salvation for all of Lebanon.”

Still, many in southern Lebanon were disappointed that the pontiff’s itinerary did not include a visit to their war-battered areas, similar to Pope Francis’ trip to the devastated city of Mosul when he visited Iraq in 2021.

Georges Elia, a member of the Dardghaya congregation, said he will attend a meeting between the pontiff and youth groups at the Maronite Patriarchate in Bkerki, in northern Lebanon.

But he is still holding out hope for a surprise papal visit to the south, a “sacred land, where Jesus Christ once walked,” he said. “The south is bleeding, and it’s in need of (the pope) to help us return and stand firm on our land.”

The first visit of a pope to the modern Lebanese state in 1964 came during a prosperous time that today many look back on nostalgically as the country’s golden era. It came in a lull between the country’s first civil war in 1958 and the 15 years of internal fighting that began in 1975.

Later papal visits came as the country was rebuilding in the aftermath of that violence, in the late 1990s; and in 2012, during the height of the Syrian conflict and refugee crisis that spilled into Lebanon.

Lebanon from its founding was envisioned as a haven for Christians. It has had strong ties with the Vatican since its independence from French rule in 1943, and for centuries prior to the establishment of the tiny Mediterranean state.

Historically, the Catholic Church helped establish many institutions in Lebanon, including schools, hospitals, and research centers, creating a unique relationship not just with Lebanon’s Christians, but its Muslim and other non-Christian populations.

Historian Charles Hayek said Lebanon has always understood the importance of having strong ties with the Vatican.

“All the Lebanese of all communities understood that for a small country to be heard, you need to lobby,” said Hayek. Because of that, prime ministers, who by convention in Lebanon are always Sunni Muslim, have joined Maronite Christian presidents in pushing for papal visits, he said.

On Pope Leo XIV’s schedule is an interfaith dialogue with the heads of the country’s handful of Christian and Muslim denominations in the heart of the Lebanese capital, where anti-establishment protests took place in 2019, and in an area that suffered some of the worst damage in the port blast.

Mireille Khoury said Pope Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, continued to support the families of the port blast victims even when global pressure on the Lebanese state for accountability died down.

Francis even invited family members of the victims, including Khoury, to the Vatican. But she couldn’t go.

“The last vacation that I had with my son was in Rome, and it was very difficult for me to go back. I felt I’m unable to do it emotionally,” Khoury said. Still, she was reassured and felt “spiritual peace” after hearing the pope’s words of support for the families.

Khoury hopes that she will be able to meet the new pope, even briefly, to ask him to continue speaking about the port explosion so that the investigation is not forgotten.

“I will beg him and appeal to him to continue pushing so that this case doesn’t go like any other case in Lebanon,” she said.

She said she expects the pope’s visit to help strengthen a faith that is often the only thing that keeps her going.

“I live by the hope,” she said, “that I will be meeting my son one day.”

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Sewell reported from Dardghaya, Lebanon.