Hundreds of thousands of people converged on Beirut’s waterfront as Pope Benedict XVI celebrated mass yesterday on the final day of his visit to Lebanon, in which he has repeatedly called for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East.
Benedict, 85, arrived a half hour before the service, and his passage was briefly brought to a halt as jubilant crowds pressed in around the popemobile, cheering and waving Vatican and Lebanese flags.
An estimated 350,000 people gathered in bright, warm sunshine to join the pontiff as he celebrated mass.
Photo: EPA
An excited Mariana Khoury, 15, wearing a headscarf inscribed in Arabic with the words “you promised and you came,” said “we want to promise to him that we will be the future of the Church and guard our love for Jesus.”
The backdrop to the raised platform on which the altar was set was in the shape of the country’s Cedar of Lebanon, and live cedars and olive trees, the symbol of peace, were placed around the platform.
The frail-looking pope, who has been walking with a cane, arrived in Lebanon on Friday to a warm welcome from all parts of the country’s multi-faith society and has dedicated his visit to the message of peace.
On Saturday, he urged Christians and Muslims to forge a harmonious, pluralistic society in which the dignity of each person is respected and the right to worship in peace is guaranteed.
He also stressed that people must repudiate vengeance, acknowledge their own faults and offer forgiveness to each other.
Those who desire to live in peace must have a change of heart, Benedict said, and that involves “rejecting revenge, acknowledging one’s faults, accepting apologies without demanding them and, not least, forgiveness.”
He said the universal yearning of humanity for peace can only be realized through community, comprising individual persons whose aspirations and rights to a fulfilling life are respected.
Lebanon is a multi-faith country in which Muslims make up about 65 percent of the population and Christians the balance.
The pope came with a message of peace and reconciliation both to Lebanon and to the wider Middle East, which have been torn by violence, often sectarian, over the years.
He was to have lunch in the mountain village of Harissa, where he has been staying, and then attend a late afternoon ecumenical meeting before returning to Rome.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to