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| The late Pope with Lebanese Muslim leaders (L). His successor (R) lands in Beirut Friday |
Talal
Salman, founding publisher and editor-in-chief of the Lebanese daily
as-Safir, penned today’s front-page leader in Arabic:
When he arrives Friday, Pope Benedict XVI will not
find the same Lebanon his predecessor, the late Pope John Paul II, visited in
May 1997.
Firstly, conditions have changed in the small
country.
At the same time, the situation is drastically
different in its immediate neighborhood and the surroundings, where dramatic
changes herald open-ended civil wars under fake religious and sectarian
slogans.
That’s probably why the new papal visit is Lebanese
by name only. Its focus though is the complete gamut of the “New Middle East” –
the hope being to comprehensively reflect on explosive regional issues.
Do we need to recall (1) that the Vatican has the
world’s largest information gathering and analysis network (2) that it has
specialized departments that are not only concerned with religious matters but
monitor political, economic and social transformations and their implications,
and (3) that it has its niche in the realm of international decision-making?
For the Pope to come to Lebanon at this particular
point in time -- when the pan-Arab nation is swept by popular uprisings and
protest movements against its regimes, with great implications for the
countries concerned and the region generally – means the visit’s objectives
certainly transcend the “Lebanese case.”
The visit’s objectives encompass the course of events
in Lebanon’s surroundings and their fallouts on the Lebanese -- this, plus a
reassurance message to Lebanon that it is not forgotten or left to twist in the
wind or fall into the abyss, considering its leaderships’ failings.
It is easy to say that by flying to Lebanon Pope
Benedict XVI wants to reassure all Christians in the Orient that they are not
overlooked, that their wellbeing is the concern of both the Vatican and eastern
and western powers, and that such concern takes in the mutations, regime
changes and changed circumstances across the region that sometimes go beyond
the slogans raised in revolution squares.
It’s worth pondering the longer-term objectives of
the impending (September 14-16) visit, which is exceptional by its timing and
avowed purpose.
(Arriving in Beirut in the early
afternoon on Friday, Pope Benedict XVI will go to the basilica of St. Paul in Harissa, where he will sign the
apostolic exhortation. The papal document will summarize and reflect upon the
discussions held by the Synod
of Bishops in October 2010. That special meeting of the Synod was dedicated
to the challenges facing the Church in the Middle East).
“Lebanon is more than a country, Lebanon is a message
of freedom and an example of pluralism for both the East and the West…” were
the words of the late Pope John Paul II during his May 1997 visit.
The country was then largely united after a political
settlement of the Lebanon
civil war -- and the wars of others on its soil. That war, or multiple wars,
consumed all manner of religious, confessional and sectarian jingles before
settling on the catchphrase of power-sharing with guarantees from Arab, read chiefly Syria with some Saudi input,
and international, read chiefly American
with some European and Vatican effort, players.
But the Arab region today is unlike what it used to
be 15 years ago. Circumstances have changed almost everywhere since 1997.
Syria, the guarantor of the 1989 Taef Agreement
ending the Lebanon civil war was strong, its people united and its regime a
regional heavyweight. West and East, Arabs, Iranians and Turks recognized
Syria’s pivotal role in ending the Lebanon civil war.
Syria today is in Lebanon’s former decade-long civil
war situation. All its sides are crumbling, including its ancient cities and
its capital, which was the world’s capital one day, as a consequence of bloody
clashes, mass-killing bombings and the disastrous flight en bloc of its
citizens in all directions – whether to Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon or Iraq.
The army was thrown into the fray with all weapons at
its disposal, including warplanes. This led to a situation of open combat
between the regime and a separate mix of opposition forces -- some of them nationalist
insurgents seeking reform to protect the country and other Salafist, jihadist and
anarchist groups fighting for their own purposes or plundering the country’s
antiquities.
In short, the country that was a model of immunity by
virtue of its national unity risks putting its destiny – as Lebanon did before
– in the hands of external forces.
It is consequently understandable to revisit, on the
sidelines of the deadly conflict, the subject of the “fate of Christian
minorities” in the region – especially after the plight and sufferings at the
hands of shadowy gangs of Iraq’s Christians, who were displaced and dispersed
throughout the world.
The Vatican had to help descendants of Christians who
inhabited Iraq since the dawn of history relocate to Europe and the United
States.
Here we are then facing the prospects of an organized
drive to protect Syria’s Christians, taking into consideration also the mass
emigration of Lebanese Christians in the wake of internecine strife in their
homeland.
Hence the need to give thought to the past, present
and future of the Christians of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, let alone the Holy
Land…
