Pope in Lebanon prays for peace at tomb of saint revered by Christians and Muslims alike

Pope Leo XIV prayed on Monday (December 1) at the tomb of a Lebanese saint revered among Christians and Muslims as he brought a message of peace, hope and religious coexistence to a region torn by conflict.

Bells rang out as Pope Leo’s covered popemobile snaked its way through the rain and thousands of enthusiastic Lebanese lining his motorcade route into Annaya, around 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Beirut. Some waved Lebanese and Vatican flags and tossed flower petals and rice on his car in a gesture of welcome as he zoomed by.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visit the hilltop monastery of St. Maroun overlooking the sea to pray at the tomb of St. Charbel Makhlouf, a Lebanese Maronite hermit who lived from 1828 to 1898. Believers credit him with miraculous healings that have occurred after people prayed for his intercession.

Pope Leo prayed quietly in the darkened tomb, and offered a lamp as a gift of light for the monastery.

“Sisters and brothers, today we entrust to St. Charbel’s intercession the needs of the church, Lebanon and the world,” Pope Leo said in French. “For the world, we ask for peace. We especially implore it for Lebanon and for the entire Levant.”

Pope Leo’s visit to the tomb, the first by a pope, opened a busy day for history’s first American pope. He received a raucous, ululating welcome from nuns and priests at the Our Lady of Lebanon sanctuary in Harissa, a town north of Beirut.

There, Pope Leo urged the church workers to offer their flocks, and especially young people, hope amid life’s injustices.

“It is necessary, even among the rubble of a world that has its own painful failures, to offer them concrete and viable prospects for rebirth and future growth,” he said to cheers and shouts of “Viva il Papa” (Long live the pope).

In the afternoon, the pope was to preside over an interfaith gathering alongside Lebanon’s Christian and Muslim leaders in the capital Beirut.

There, Pope Leo was expected to hammer home his core message of peace and Christian-Muslim coexistence in Lebanon and beyond at a time of conflict in Gaza and political tensions in Lebanon that are worse than they have been in years. His visit comes at a tenuous time for the tiny Mediterranean country after years of economic crises and political deadlock, punctuated by the 2020 Beirut port blast.