Report: Pope Possibly to Visit Lebanon Next Year
Preparations underway for a possible visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Lebanon in 2012 in an attempt to preserve the Christians’ existence in the country and the East, As Safir newspaper reported on Friday.
“The Vatican and the Maronite Patriarchate have a priority at this stage to preserve the existence of Christians” in the East, church sources told the daily.
The sources revealed that a meeting that was set to be held between Middle East bishops in Baghdad in November was cancelled due to “the developing security incidents in Iraq.”
“The meeting was moved to Beirut, and the Patriarch (Beshara al-Rahi) will visit Baghdad instead later on,” they stressed.
Information obtained by the Vatican and the Maronite Patriarchate indicates that the number of Christians displaced from Syria has increased because of the unstable situation in their country.
The sources told the newspaper that al-Rahi’s latest stances “came over information obtained by the Vatican on the threats endangering the Christians’ presence in the region.”
“There is a full coordination between the Maronite Patriarchate and the Vatican in this matter,” they added.
Al-Rahi called during his visit to Paris in September for giving Syrian President Bashar Assad the chance to introduce reform after warning that the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria was a threat to Christians in the neighboring country.
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