Pope Leo ends his first overseas trip in Lebanon, leading a mass for 100,000 and praying at the site of the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
BEIRUT: Pope Leo concludes his first overseas trip as pontiff in Lebanon on Tuesday.
The Pope will pray at the site of the 2020 chemical explosion at Beirut’s port and lead a Catholic Mass on the waterfront expected to draw 100,000 people.
He departs for Rome with his entourage at approximately 1:15 pm local time (1115 GMT).
The three-day visit has focused on pleas for Middle East peace and warnings over humanity’s future amid global conflicts.
Pope Leo has urged Lebanon’s leaders to persevere with peace efforts following last year’s war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Meeting Lebanon’s diverse religious leaders on Monday, he urged unity to heal the country after years of crisis.
He called on Christian, Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim, and Druze leaders to show different traditions “can live together and build a country united by respect and dialogue”.
The 70-year-old pontiff’s visit is seen by some Lebanese as a sign of hope.
“It was lovely to know there was a sign of hope coming back to Lebanon,” said volunteer Maroun al-Mallah, a 21-year-old student.
“It’s just pain after pain after pain … especially after the third biggest explosion happened” at the port, he told Reuters.
The 2020 port explosion killed 200 people and caused billions of dollars in damage.
An investigation into the blast’s cause has been stymied with no one held accountable.
Pope Leo is expected to lay a wreath at a memorial and greet blast survivors and victims’ relatives.
His itinerary also includes a visit to a psychiatric hospital run by Franciscan nuns.
Lebanon hosts the Middle East’s largest proportion of Christians.
The country has been rocked by the spillover of the Gaza conflict and a devastating Israeli offensive.
It also hosts 1 million Syrian and Palestinian refugees.
Lebanon continues to struggle with a severe economic crisis triggered by profligate spending in late 2019.
