Leo XIV began the Lebanese stage of his apostolic journey after arriving at Beirut's international airport on November 30. After the official welcome ceremony, the Pontiff moved to the Presidential Palace for successive meetings with the President of the Republic, the President of the National Assembly, and the Prime Minister. The day concluded with a speech addressed to the authorities, representatives of civil society, and the diplomatic corps, in which he centered his message on peace, reconciliation, and the resilience of the Lebanese people.
Welcome Ceremony and Institutional Meetings
The Pope was received at the airport by the President of the Republic, the President of the National Assembly, the Prime Minister, their respective wives, and the patriarch. After the customary honors, he proceeded in a motorcade to the Presidential Palace, where the cavalry escorted his arrival to the main entrance. The president and his wife gave him the official welcome accompanied by a group of traditional dancers. Two young people presented the Pontiff with flowers at the end of the reception.
In the Hall of Ambassadors, the private meeting between the Pope and the Lebanese president took place. Subsequently, the presidential family was presented, and gifts were exchanged. Afterward, the Holy Father held separate meetings with the President of the National Assembly and with the Prime Minister. Before continuing with the scheduled events, the Pope signed the Honor Book at the palace entrance and blessed a “cedar of friendship” planted in the gardens.
Meeting with Authorities, Civil Society, and Diplomatic Corps
Leo XIV met with political, religious, business, and cultural representatives of the country at the Presidential Palace, as well as with members of the diplomatic corps. After the intervention by the President of the Republic, the Pope delivered an extensive speech centered on the challenge of building peace in a context of crisis, internal fractures, and regional pressures.
We leave below the first words of Leo XIV in Beirut:
Mr. President of the Republic,
distinguished civil and religious authorities,
members of the Diplomatic Corps,
ladies and gentlemen:
Blessed are those who work for peace!
It is a great joy to meet with you and visit this land where “peace” is much more than a word. Here peace is a desire and a vocation, it is a gift and a work in constant construction. You are invested with authority in this country, each in his or her sphere and with specific functions. In the light of this authority, I wish to address to you the words of Jesus, chosen as the fundamental inspiration for my journey: «Blessed are those who work for peace» (Mt 5,9). Certainly, there are millions of Lebanese, here and around the world, who serve peace silently, day after day. To you, however, who have important institutional tasks within this people, a special beatitude awaits if you can say that you have placed the goal of peace above all else. I wish, in this meeting, to reflect a little with you on what it means to be artisans of peace in very complex, conflictive, and uncertain circumstances.
In addition to the wonders of nature and the cultural riches of Lebanon, already praised by all my predecessors who have visited your country, there shines a quality that distinguishes the Lebanese: you are a people that does not give up, but rather, in the face of trials, always knows how to rise again with courage. Your resilience is an essential characteristic of authentic builders of peace: the work of peace, in fact, is a continuous restarting. Commitment and love for peace know no fear in the face of apparent defeats, they are not overcome by disappointments, but know how to see beyond, welcoming and embracing with hope all realities. Tenacity is needed to build peace; perseverance is needed to generate life and safeguard it.
Interrogate your history. Ask yourselves where the great strength comes from that has never left your people defeated, without hope. You are a varied country, a community of communities, but united by a common language. I am not referring only to the Levantine Arabic that you speak and through which your great past has disseminated pearls of inestimable value; I am referring above all to the language of hope, the one that has always allowed you to start over. Around us, in almost the entire world, a kind of pessimism and a sense of impotence seem to have prevailed; people seem unable even to ask themselves what they can do to change the course of history. Great decisions seem to be made by a few and, often, to the detriment of the common good, which seems like an inescapable fate. You have suffered greatly from the consequences of an economy that kills (cf. Ap. Exhort. Evangelii gaudium, 53), from global instability that also has devastating repercussions in the Levant, from the radicalization of identities and conflicts, but you have always wanted and known how to start over.
Lebanon can be proud of a dynamic civil society, well-formed, rich in young people capable of expressing the dreams and hopes of an entire country. For this reason, I encourage you never to separate yourselves from your people and to place yourselves at the service of your people—so rich in its variety—with commitment and dedication. May you be able to speak a single language: the language of hope that brings everyone together in a constant new beginning. The desire to live and grow together, as a people, makes each group the voice of a polyphony. May the deep bond of affection that unites your country to so many Lebanese scattered around the world also help you. They love their origins, pray for the people of which they feel a part, and support it with the multiple experiences and skills that make them so appreciated everywhere.
We thus arrive at a second characteristic of peace builders: not only do they know how to restart, but above all they do so through the arduous path of reconciliation. In fact, there are personal and collective wounds that require long years, sometimes entire generations, to heal. If they are not healed, if one does not work, for example, on the healing of memory, on an approach between those who have suffered grievances and injustices, it is difficult to advance toward peace. One remains stuck, each a prisoner of his or her pain and reasons. Truth, on the other hand, can only be honored through encounter. Each of us sees a part of the truth, knows an aspect of it, but cannot renounce what only the other knows, what only the other sees. Truth and reconciliation always grow together and only together: both in a family and between different communities and the diverse souls of a country, or between nations.
At the same time, there is no lasting reconciliation without a common goal, without an openness to a future in which good prevails over the evil suffered or inflicted in the past or present. Therefore, a culture of reconciliation is not only born from below, from the willingness and courage of some, but needs authorities and institutions that recognize the common good above partial goods. The common good is more than the sum of many interests: it brings each one's goals as close as possible and moves them in a direction in which all will have more than if they advanced separately. Peace is, in fact, much more than a precarious balance between those who live separately under the same roof. Peace is knowing how to live together, in communion, as reconciled persons. A reconciliation that, besides making us live together, will teach us to work together, shoulder to shoulder, for a shared future. It is then that peace becomes that abundance that surprises us when our horizon expands beyond any fence and barrier. Sometimes it is thought that, before taking any step, everything must be clarified, everything resolved, but it is mutual dialogue, even in misunderstandings, the path that leads to reconciliation. The greatest truth of all is that we are together inserted into a project that God has prepared for us to be a family.
Finally, I would like to outline a third characteristic of peace builders. They dare to stay, even when it involves sacrifice. There are moments when it is easier to flee or, simply, more convenient to go elsewhere. It takes a lot of courage and vision of the future to stay or return to one's own country, considering even quite difficult conditions worthy of love and dedication. We know that uncertainty, violence, poverty, and many other threats produce here, as in other parts of the world, a hemorrhage of young people and families who seek a future elsewhere, despite the great pain that leaving their homeland represents. Undoubtedly, it must be recognized that many Lebanese scattered around the world bring very positive things to all of you. However, we must not forget that remaining in the homeland and collaborating day by day in the development of the civilization of love and peace remains something very praiseworthy.
The Church, in fact, not only cares about the dignity of those who move to countries other than their own, but desires that no one be forced to leave and that those who wish to do so can return in conditions of security. Human mobility, in fact, represents an immense opportunity for encounter and mutual enrichment, but it does not erase the special bond that unites each one to certain places, to which he or she owes his or her identity in a totally peculiar way. And peace always grows in a concrete vital context, made of geographical, historical, and spiritual bonds. It is necessary to encourage those who favor them and are nourished by them, without yielding to localism and nationalism. In the encyclical Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis indicated this path: «We must look at the global, which rescues us from domestic pettiness. When the house is no longer a home, but an enclosure, a dungeon, the global rescues us because it is like the final cause that draws us toward fullness. At the same time, we must assume the local with cordiality, because it has something that the global does not possess: to be leaven, to enrich, to set in motion mechanisms of subsidiarity. Therefore, universal fraternity and social friendship within each society are two inseparable and coessential poles» (n. 142).
This is a challenge not only for Lebanon, but for the entire Levant: what to do so that especially young people do not feel compelled to abandon their land and emigrate? How to motivate them not to seek peace elsewhere, but to find guarantees and become protagonists of it in their native land? In this sense, Christians and Muslims, together with all the religious and civil sectors of Lebanese society, are called to make their own contribution and to take on the commitment to sensitize the international community about this.
In this context, I would like to emphasize the indispensable role of women in the arduous and patient commitment to safeguarding and building peace. Let us not forget that women have a specific capacity to work for peace, because they know how to safeguard and develop deep bonds with life, with people, and with places. Their participation in social and political life, as well as in that of their own religious communities, along with the strength that comes from young people, represents a factor of true renewal throughout the world. Blessed, then, are the women who work for peace and blessed are the young people who remain or return, so that Lebanon may continue to be a land full of life.
I conclude by drawing inspiration from another precious characteristic of your millennial tradition. You are a people that loves music, which, on feast days, becomes dance, a language of joy and communion. This trait of your culture helps us understand that peace is not only the result of human commitment, as necessary as it is: peace is a gift that comes from God and that, above all, dwells in our heart. It is like an interior movement that spills outward, allowing us to be guided by a melody greater than ourselves, that of divine love. Whoever dances advances lightly, without treading the earth, harmonizing his or her steps with those of others. Thus is peace: a path moved by the Spirit, which disposes the heart to listen and makes it more attentive and respectful toward the other. May this desire for peace that comes from God grow among you, which today can already transform the way of looking at others and inhabiting together this land, a land that He loves deeply and continues to bless.
Mr. President, distinguished authorities, I thank you again for the hospitality you are offering me. Be assured of my prayer and that of the entire Church for your delicate service to the common good.