Pope Benedict XVI will visit Lebanon in September, the Vatican has announced.Confirming reports that had circulated earlier this year, the Lebanese bishops’ conference and the …
The decision is a courageous one. Reportedly, the trip to Mexico and Cuba had left Pope Benedict exhausted. He will be 85 when he travels to Lebanon.
Still, the Christians of Lebanon will likely be greatly heartened by his visit. They comprise 35% of Lebanon’s population, but this has been declining for several decades. In the mid-1970’s Christians represented about half of Lebanon’s population.
Some additional information:
This 24th foreign trip undertaken by the pope, who will be 85, comes against a background of violence in neighbouring Syria and at a time when Christian communities in the Middle East feel increasingly threatened by militant Islamism.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fuad Twal, warned on Sunday in his Easter homily of the plight of Christians in the region, saying the world was now ‘less concerned’ about the minority.
Twal, the most senior Catholic in the Middle East, evoked the ‘fear’ of Christians in the region in the traditional address, delivered at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi had announced at the time that during his visit to Lebanon, Pope Benedict XVI would present Middle Eastern bishops an apostolic exhortation.
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