Blessed are the Peacemakers

Pope Leo is not a miracle worker but his visit to Lebanon is nonetheless a valuable PR mission for our troubled country

Two years ago, I was at a dinner on the Isle of Uist in the Outer Hebrides, a remote group of islands off the northwest coast of Scotland. My host was the local laird (a sort of mini-Zaim) and the guest the meal, he leant over and enquired if I would be attending mass the following day.

I shook my head. “Don’t tell me you’re a Protestant?” he laughed. I explained that my relationship with God was a work in progress and sensing that this wasn’t quite what he wanted to hear, I added, 

Actually, I was born a Maronite. I don’t know if you’ve heard of us.

His eyes lit up. A woman at the table asked, “what’s a Maronite?” (I think she thought we were like the Amish), but before I could answer Father Michael interjected, excitedly explaining, and I paraphrase, that the Maronites are the only one of the Eastern Catholic Churches who have had uninterrupted full communion with the Vatican.

This was news to me, as was - and I had to look this up - that the early Maronites were also staunch defenders of the proclamation in 451 AD by the Council of Chalcedon (yeah me neither) that Christ was ‘both god and man’. This, apparently, was a big deal. Father Michael urged me again to attend mass. I told him I’d see how I felt in the morning, but on reflection I am rather ashamed to say, I was not persuaded. I should have just been polite and gone.

I thought of him this week as Pope Leo XIV prepares to visit Lebanon. It is the third time in recent decades that the Holy Father has arrived on our shores - John Paul II in 1997 and Benedict XVI in 2012 – but this trip is more critical. The country is more fragile than at any other time in its short history. It has been pummelled by war, terror and economic disaster and it could all get very worse very quickly. To the Lebanese, who in the past year have been lectured by American diplomats who should know better and bombed by Israelis who we know will never know better, the visit promises to be a rare feel-good moment.

And it’s not just the Maronites, Melkites, Armenian Catholics, Chaldeans, Syriacs and Roman Catholics who will be cheering. Unless they are absolutist in their dogma, Lebanon’s Protestant and Orthodox Christians will also see him as a fellow traveller, as should Lebanon’s Muslims (assuming they accept Christ as a prophet) whose support for a pope can do a lot to counter the narrative peddled by many far right European politicians that Islam is trying to work its way into, and take over, every corner of western society.

Because, of all the religious leaders in the world, the Pope is arguably the most ‘box office’. The Dalai Lama is way behind in second place. Behind him is probably the Egyptian Grand Imam, Ahmed El-Tayeb and way back in fourth, and very much on the naughty step, is Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Pope Leo is doing all the heavy lifting.

Much cynical fun has been poked at the cosmetic preparations the asphalted roads with their neat dividing lines. So too has the belief that his trip is merely window dressing, that it won’t make one bit of difference to our current woes. And yes, for the past two years, we have been caught in a tortuous cycle of war and terror; we have been let down by the state and the international community, and yes, Israel still occupies our land and rains random death from the skies. Yeah, we get it.

Pope Leo may not be able to secure peace but, when he holds mass at the site of the August 4, 2020, Beirut port explosion, he can deliver a nonetheless important counter-narrative to the weary cliché, that Lebanon is not just another cursed country in an equally cursed neighbourhood.

Lebanon is relevant. The message of Lebanon is relevant and those who do claim to decide, or have a stake in, Lebanon’s future, must be reminded of this relevance while they play fast and loose with what is left of our territorial and constitutional integrity. He should also remind the world that before the creation of Israel, Jews lived very happily alongside Christians and Muslims in what was a beautiful mosaic of co-existence. So there!

Yes, we are a flawed country, but a country nonetheless founded on values of humanity and generosity of spirit. This cannot be said enough and if the Pope can convey this then his visit will not have been in vain.

I am going back to Uist this summer. If father Michael is still there, I will attend mass. It’s the least I can do.