POPE BENEDICT XVI started a visit to Lebanon on Friday, arriving in a region transformed by popular uprisings and war, and unsettled by spreading protests against an incendiary anti-Muslim video.
At a fraught moment, the pope’s visit, his first to the region since 2009, was being closely watched. Over the course of the three-day trip, he is expected to speak about the hardships faced by Christians in the region, and to address the civil war in Syria, which has left thousands of people dead and unleashed grisly sectarian violence.
Aboard the papal plane en route to Lebanon, Pope Benedict spoke about Syria, calling for a stop to arms imports from both sides. “The importing of arms cannot continue,” he said, according to an informal transcript provided by the Italian daily La Stampa.
“Instead of importing arms, which is a grave sin, one should import ideas of peace, creativity, find solutions for accepting everyone in his otherness.”
The pope also spoke for the first time about the Arab Spring. “I would say it’s a positive thing: it’s the desire for more democracy, more liberty, more co-operation and a renewed Arab identity.”
But he also added that amid such revolutions “there is always a danger of forgetting a fundamental aspect of liberty: tolerance for others and the fact that human liberty is always a shared liberty.”
He added, “We must do everything possible” to encourage tolerance and “reconciliation”. His comments, which seemed aimed at both the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the growing number of militias fighting to topple him, also served as a sharp rebuke to regional powers, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which continue to funnel arms into Syria.
His plea reflected the fears of many Arab Christians, whose numbers have dwindled in recent decades because of wars, occupations and discrimination.
The rise of Islamist parties after the 2011 uprisings has further unsettled many Christians, especially in Egypt, where there are fears that the Muslim Brotherhood is seeking to tie aspects of citizenship much more closely to Muslim religious identity.
At about 1.40pm, the pope, looking tired, emerged from his aircraft to cheers and was greeted by Lebanon’s president, Michel Suleiman. Children handed him flowers, which he immediately passed on to an aide. In a short speech on the tarmac, the pope focused on Lebanon, shaken by the war in neighbouring Syria, which has sent violence across the border and divided Lebanon’s political factions.
But Pope Benedict praised Lebanon as an example of co-operation between different faiths. “Like me, you know that this equilibrium, which is presented everywhere as an example, is extremely delicate,” he said. “Sometimes it seems about to snap like a bow which is overstretched or submitted to pressures which are too often partisan . . . This is where real moderation and great wisdom are tested.”
Protests this week outside US diplomatic outposts complicated the pope’s trip, and the Vatican has walked a fine line so as not to inflame Muslims.
On Wednesday, after news of the death of J Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, in an assault on the US consulate in Benghazi, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev Federico Lombardi, issued a statement that focused on the video, which mocks the Prophet Muhammad. He said, “Unjustified offense and provocations” against Muslims produce “sometimes tragic results” that yield “unacceptable violence”.
On Thursday, Fr Lombardi issued a statement denouncing the ambassador’s death, saying that the Vatican called “for the firmest possible condemnation on the part of the Holy See. Nothing, in fact, can justify the activity of terrorist organisations and homicidal violence.”
In Lebanon, the pope is expected to deliver six speeches, which have probably been carefully vetted so as to cause minimum offence. The Vatican has characteristically played down the political dimensions of the trip, saying that the pope is bringing a pastoral message of peace.
During the three-day trip, the pope is expected to meet Lebanon’s political and religious leaders, along with Middle East bishops and young people. The visit culminates with a large outdoor Mass on the Beirut waterfront on Sunday morning, before the pope returns to Rome that evening. – (New York Times service)