To make love, peace, reconciliation convincing, Christians must unite, Pope tells
Lebanese Christians
(September 17, 2012) Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday urged the leaders of Christian Churches
in Lebanon to work for unity and full communion among the followers of Christ saying
this is needed to make their work for love, peace, reconciliation more convincing.
The Pope visited Lebanon September 14-16, to sign and present to the Churches of the
Middle East his Apostolic Exhortation based on the Synod of Bishops for the Middle
East held in the Vatican in 2010. On his way to Beirut’s airport for the farewell
ceremony, Pope Benedict met the Orthodox Patriarchs, representatives of Protestant
Churches and well as the Catholic Patriarchs of Lebanon work of and met Orthodox
Church leaders and Protestant leaders of Lebanon at the Syro-Catholic Patriarchate
of Charfet. Handing each a copy of his post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation, “Ecclesia
in Medio Oriente” or “The Church in the Middle East”, the Pope described their meeting
as an eloquent sign of their profound desire to respond to the call of Christ, “that
all may be one”. “In these unstable times, so inclined to the violence which your
region knows so well,” the Pope said, “it is even more necessary that Christ’s disciples
give an authentic witness to their unity, so that the world may believe in their message
of love, peace and reconciliation. “This is a message that all Christians, and we
in particular, have been commissioned to hand on to the world, a message of inestimable
value in the present context of the Middle East,” the Pope said. “Let us work without
ceasing so that the love of Christ may lead us little by little into full communion
with each other,” “by means of common prayer and mutual commitment,” the Pope urged.
The Holy Father particularly commended the heroic testimony of faith shown by the
Syrian Antiochene Church through history, whose members remained committed to the
faith even to the point of martyrdom.