On the occasion of Holy Week, Pope Francis addressed a letter to the Catholics of the Holy Land, encouraging them to remain in the land of Christ. "A land where you want to stay and where it is good for you to stay," the Holy Father emphasized.
It goes without saying that this advice is directed at Christians who are tempted to leave or forced to do so for various reasons, including economic ones. It particularly speaks to the youth.
In a sense, Pope Francis could very well have addressed this invitation to stay in the East to Lebanese Christians as well, whose country is part of the Holy Land. They too are tempted to leave due to the ongoing crises shaking their country, from employment crises to housing shortages, from economic collapse to a lack of future prospects, from presidential crises to the decay of the judicial system.
"Lebanon is part of the Holy Land; going to Lebanon is a mission for all Christians," said Pope John Paul II once, as cited by the Maronite Foundation in the World, a Maronite patriarchal institution. As the Gospels attest, Jesus walked and preached along our coasts, in Tyre, Sarepta (Sarafand), and Sidon. Mount Hermon, at the foot of which lie the Shebaa Farms, is believed by some to be the site of the Transfiguration, where Jesus, present on the mountain with his apostles Peter, James, and John, was seen surrounded by supernatural light, conversing with Moses and Elijah (Luke 29).
There are also strong arguments for the presence in Lebanon of Cana from the Gospel, where Jesus performed his first miracle: changing water into wine.
Furthermore, the first apostolic missions passed through our geographical space. Not far from Jbeil, one can still visit the cove from which Saint Paul set sail for Rome.
But while Lebanon participates in the blessing of the Holy Land, history and geography dictate that it is also associated with the drama that this land has been experiencing since the UN decision to partition historic Palestine and create an Israeli state (1947).
Today, we continue to pay the price for Israel's geographical proximity and the struggle that the Palestinian people, in its various political components, continue to endure to achieve statehood.
Paul VI, the first pope to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, mentioned as early as January 1964 "the persistence of tension in the Middle East, without conclusive steps towards peace, which poses a serious and constant danger not only to the tranquility and security of these populations — and to world peace — but also to certain extremely dear values, for various reasons, to a large part of humanity."
It is Pope Francis himself who has just reiterated these words in his plea for the Christians of Palestine, "irreplaceable witnesses to the mystery of the Lord's Passion," not to abandon their homeland.
"In these dark times," Pope Francis continues, "where the darkness of Good Friday seems to cover your land and too many regions of the world are disfigured by the useless madness of war, which is always and for everyone a bloody defeat, you are lit torches in the night; you are seeds of good in a land torn by conflicts."
"You are not alone, and we will not leave you alone," he promises.
Francis' call echoes those of his predecessors, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Both addressed the regional crisis, seemingly insoluble from a human standpoint, highlighting the direct and indirect connection between this endemic crisis and the presence of Christians in the East.
The most recent effort deployed in this regard by the Vatican is the Abu Dhabi meeting (2019) and the signing of the Declaration of Human Fraternity between Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayyeb of Al-Azhar. Replacing communal allegiance with citizenship allegiance is at the heart of this document, which aims to put an end once and for all to the “dhimmi” status of Christians and bring Islam into democratic modernity.
It is true that in 2019, Shiite fundamentalism had not yet drawn Lebanon into the futility of a war without resolution that has already cost Lebanon some 300 lives, including 264 Hezbollah fighters, and which, according to the latest news, could have consequences...
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