Pope in Lebanon: What are the local papers saying?

(Vatican Radio) Our correspondent in Beirut Tracey McClure has been looking through the Lebanese newspapers just ahead of Pope Benedict's arrival. She gives this review of the local press and of the final preparations for the papal visit. Listen:
Full text of Tracey's report:
"The Lebanese Church has been preparing for this visit for months, writing up a special prayer for the Holy Father’s visit, holding novenas in the run up to his arrival, Christian and Muslim prayer vigils and lighting colored candles on balconies and rooftops as gentle stars of hope glimmering in the darkness of the night.
Church and political leaders from all the country’s 18 different sects are rallying all the Lebanese to turn out en masse to greet the Pope and follow his visit through the media in a sign of unity as conflict and violence sweep through the region from counties as close as Syria and Iraq to Yemen, Libya and Egypt.
A glance at the leading papers here in Lebanon reveals how much is riding on this papal visit and how high hopes are that Pope Benedict will offer a powerful message of peace in response to the violence.
The English language Daily Star offers a front page banner welcoming the Pope with the Vatican and Lebanese flags flying over a blue sky and leads with an article on Thursday’s press conference with one of the chief organizers of the visit, Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai, who leads “one of the most influential Christian communities” in the region. The paper reports that the Patriarch described the papal visit “as a call for peace in the Middle East and a call for the separation of religion from the state, for building democracy and for the acceptance of the other.”
Inside the paper – a full page dedicated to the papal visit and logistics titled “Lebanese of all faiths hope Pope visit heralds peace.”
L’Oriente le Jour, the French daily, opens with an editorial on the papal visit entitled “The Pastor’s anguish” with an overview of the last 15 years in Lebanon and the Middle East since Pope John Paul II was here in 1997. The article describes Pope’s arrival as reviving hopes for peace not just in Lebanon but throughout the Mideast.
An Nahar leads with an article entitled “the Pope with us on the 14^th of September” describing the anticipation of people here, and picking up on a Vatican Radio interview with Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran. In that interview, the Cardinal said the Pope’s visit to Lebanon is a call to communion among Christians and dialogue with non-Christians. “This,” he said, “is Lebanon!” For in Lebanon, “Muslims, Christians, Druse, everyone goes to school together; they all have the same books, the same professors.” Drawing on his experiences living four years through Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, the Cardinal said “the school (is what) has made Lebanon.” He remarked that the pluralism and coexistence of people of many different faiths in lebanon exist in no other place in “this part of the world” and “must be safeguarded.”
Arab language dailies such as Al Moustakbal and Al Safir run headlines like “All of Lebanon welcomes the Pope” and “Lebanon welcomes the Pope with concern over the situation in Syria” and offer lengthy inserts on the religious and political dimensions of this historic visit and the Apostolic Exhortation that the Pope will be signing as the new mission of the Church in the Middle East.
The Armenian daily Aztag offers a first page photo of Pope Benedict welcoming him to the region and reporting on Patriarch Rai’s briefing with the headline “ The Pope’s visit will bring peace to the region” and refers to Lebanese President Michel Sleiman’s and other political leaders’ appeals to the population to make the visit a success."