VATICAN Pope to the Lebanese prime minister: “Help yourselves, the Vatican will help you”

The promise, but also the warning, of the pontiff to Mikati in yesterday’s meeting. Renewed confidence in the message of “cultural and religious pluralism” that makes the country of cedars unique in the region. source: The Lebanese enjoy sympathy and appreciation in the Vatican, but the appointment of the president is a precondition for carrying out the apostolic visit that was suspended in 2022.

Rome () – The head of the Lebanese interim government, Nagib Mikati, has kept his word. He was received yesterday morning by Pope Francis in a private audience, as he had promised in a television interview in which he expressed concern about the drastic decline in the number of Christians in the Arab world, including Lebanon. According to a study recently mentioned by the Prime Minister of Beirut without specifying the authors, in the country of cedars Christians represent only 19.2% of the total population. Estimates strongly refuted by the Maronite patriarchal headquarters, according to which the percentage of the Christian population is around 34%.

Leaving the audience, the Lebanese head of government reported that the pontiff had “confirmed his confidence in Lebanon’s message of cultural and religious pluralism, which makes it unique in the region.” The Pope also made an appeal for “solidarity” addressed to all the political leaders of the Lebanese nation.

Within the logic of a global approach, Mikati said that he himself expressed to the Pope his conviction that “Lebanon’s message [de pluralismo democrático] today it is spreading in the Arab world.” And then he added: “I have given the Pope a document outlining the situation in Lebanon and the possible solutions to which the Vatican could contribute through contacts with the international community, particularly for the urgent holding of presidential elections”.

Behind the visit is also the confrontation between Mikati and a part of the Lebanese Christian world, in particular the deputy and leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (CPL) Gebran Bassil, who in recent months has emerged as a standard-bearer for the defense of the ” rights of Christians. Bassil reproaches the head of government for having convened the Council of Ministers in the absence of a head of state. According to Lebanese diplomatic sources, the prime minister, a Sunni Muslim, wanted to show from the very capital of Christianity that he scrupulously and literally respects not only the rights (of Christians), but also their spirit. All this despite the differences on the way to apply it that pit him against Bassil, who cares as much as the first about the “Islamic-Christian association, hallmark of the Lebanese political system.”

A capital of sympathy

The meeting that Mikati had with Pope Francis, and later with the Vatican Secretary of State, Card. Pietro Parolin, and the Secretary for Relations with States, Msgr. Paul Gallagher, was “very cordial”, says a well-informed source in Rome, on condition of anonymity. According to the same source, who was present at the meeting, “all Lebanese benefit from a capital of sympathy within the Vatican.”

As was to be expected, the topics that were developed in the talks were “very topical”, continues the source, with particular reference to the essential dialogue between the political forces represented in Parliament, with a view to the election of the successor to President Michel Aoun. . The mandate of the last head of state expired on October 31 and it is hoped that the recent rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as the dialogue that may result, will appease “the concerns expressed by some Christian personalities about seeing Lebanon slip away from them.” between the hands”.

“Without the Christians, Lebanon would no longer be the country we know,” the prime minister assured his interlocutors, and was also concerned about the “essential role” that Christians play throughout the Arab world.

Mikati then took the opportunity to invite the Pope to visit Lebanon again, but in a context of “better conditions” than those that led to the cancellation of the visit in June 2022. “In part, it was also due to the knee problem” that It has afflicted him for a long time (although it should be noted here that in the following months the pontiff made much more demanding trips from the physical point of view, despite the fact that the disease persisted, ed). The election of a president to lead the country, clarifies the aforementioned source, “is one of the necessary conditions for a trip by Pope Francis to Lebanon.”

In short, our interlocutor concludes, Mikati received the following valuable advice from the Pope and his close collaborators: “The Vatican contributes, but it does not replace. Help yourselves, the Vatican will help you”. Finally, yesterday afternoon the Lebanese head of government met with his Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, whom he thanked for the help given by Rome to Beirut, especially in terms of support and presence in the military plane.