Pope Leo XIV Concludes Historic Visit to Lebanon, Calls for Peace, Unity and Social Healing

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  Newsroom

• December 02, 2025

• Newsroom

Pope Leo XIV Concludes Historic Visit to Lebanon, Calls for Peace, Unity and Social Healing

Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S.-born pontiff, concluded his three-day Apostolic Visit to Lebanon today, delivering a powerful message of peace, solidarity and interfaith unity amid the country’s political, economic and social crisis. 

Upon arrival in Beirut on November 30, Pope Leo met with civil authorities, representatives of civil society and diplomatic corps at the Presidential Palace. In his initial address, titled “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” he emphasized that “peace is not simply an aspiration, but a daily necessity” in Lebanon’s fragile social fabric. 

During the visit, the Pope prayed at the tomb of Saint Charbel Makhlouf, marking the first ever papal pilgrimage to this revered Maronite site, and urged kindness, humility, and spiritual solidarity amid hardship. 

He also met with war-affected families and visited a psychiatric hospital in Jall el-Dib, drawing attention to Lebanon’s neglected mental-health sector and calling for compassion and dignity for the most vulnerable. 

On Tuesday (Dec 2), in his final act in Lebanon, Pope Leo celebrated a Mass at Beirut’s waterfront attended by an estimated 150,000 people, delivering an emotional homily calling Lebanon to “be a house of justice and fraternity” and urging all parties to choose mediation over violence. He also stopped at the site of the 2020 Beirut port explosion, laying a wreath and praying in silence with victims’ families — demanding accountability and justice for the tragedy that still weighs heavily on the national conscience. 

“Weapons kill; negotiation, mediation and dialogue build,” the Pope said in his farewell address, calling on all Lebanese regions, even those he could not visit, to abandon hostilities and embrace a future of peace.