Lebanon welcomes the Pope

(Vatican Radio) Tracey McClure is currently in Lebanon's capital Beirut travelling with Pope Benedict XVI. She reports on the arrival ceremony at Beirut's '' "Rafiq Hariri" airport where he touched down in the early afternoon.
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He was greeted with all the fanfare and celebration you can imagine for this country which was welcoming a pope for the first time in fifteen years. When Pope John Paul came here in 1997, he too was bringing a message of peace and reconciliation in a region struggling with conflict.
Catholic Patriarchs and bishops, representatives of Orthodox and Protestant churches, of other faiths and Lebanese political leaders were on hand as the Pope’s plane touched down just ahead of schedule. Young people dressed in traditional costume - yellow and white for the occasion - handed the Holy Father a colorful spray of flowers and youth groups in white held up signs with “Holy Father we love you” in English and Arabic.
Despite the joyful expressions of hundreds of faithful waving Vatican and Lebanese flags, there was a tangibly solemn feel to the occasion. The weight of the Pope’s visit at this dramatic time for the Middle East could be seen on many a face.
Speaking in Arabic, President Michel Sleiman welcomed the Holy Father saying you are bringing the peace of God in which all the peoples of this region believe. And, he emphasized the Lebanese model of coexistence that Pope John Paul so often spoke of as a model for the whole region.
Pope Benedict thanked the President for his invitation to come here, recalling the times he and Prime Minister Najib Mikati had visited him in the Vatican and the “excellent relations which have always existed between Lebanon and the Holy See.” He added that his present visit “seeks to contribute to strengthening” those ties.
But this visit is not just an official State one. Pope Benedict is also here as leader of the Catholic Church, which includes many eastern Catholic rites which trace their roots back two thousand years. This visit is also in response to the invitation of the Patriarchs of these churches.
One of the eastern Church’s earliest saints, St. Maron, from whom the Maronite rite takes its name, is now honored in St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. A statue of the 5^th century Syrian saint was inaugurated in 2011 at a ceremony where the Maronite Lebanese President was present himself.
St Maron’s “silent presence at the side of Saint Peter’s Basilica,” the Pope said, “is a constant reminder of Lebanon in the very place where the Apostle Peter was laid to rest.”
The Maronite church represents the largest Christian community in Lebanon and the presence of this saint in Rome “witnesses to a long spiritual heritage” in which the Lebanese people have venerated the first of the apostles and his successors. And the Maronite Patriarchs, he noted, underline this tie by adding “Boutros” or Peter, to their name.
Noting the other purpose of his visit, what he called “the important ecclesial event,” Pope Benedict said he would be signing and handing over to the bishops of the Middle East the post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in Medio Oriente concluding their 2010 Synod.
Addressed to everyone, the document, he said is “a roadmap” for Christians for the years to come.
The Pope said by their presence today, the Catholic, Orthodox and other religious leaders and faithful showed “the esteem”, “cooperation” and “mutual respect” they wish to promote among all people.
Remembering the “sad and painful events” along the years in Lebanon, he stressed that “the successful way the Lebanese all live together surely demonstrates to the whole Middle East and to the rest of the world” that cooperation and respect can coexist between Catholics and other Christians and between members of different faiths.
But this equilibrium, “presented everywhere as an example” he said, is “extremely delicate.” And in an allusion perhaps to the heated political rhetoric that sometimes threatens to divide Christians and Muslims even within their own communities, he said “like a bow” this balance “sometimes seems about to snap from pressures which are “too often partisan, even selfish, contrary and extraneous to Lebanese harmony and gentleness.” “Reason,” he stressed, “must overcome one-sided passion in order to promote the greater good of all.”
And, at a time when secularists the world over are calling for the marginalization or elimination of God in the public sphere, Pope Benedict stressed “how important the presence of God is in the life of everyone and how the manner of coexistence, this conviviality” to which Lebanon aspires, will work “only if it is founded upon a welcoming regard for the other,” upon benevolence and rooted in God. Lebanon’s “celebrated” equilibrium, he said, will persist “through the good will and commitment of all Lebanese. Only then will it serve as a model to the inhabitants of the whole region and of the entire world.” It is not just a human task, but a gift of God to be sought “with insistence, preserved at all costs and consolidated with determination.”
With Pope Benedict in Beirut, I’m Tracey McClure