Southern Lebanon villages overlooked by Pope’s visit : NPR
Father Fadi el-Mir looks out over the Mediterranean from the Our Lady of Lebanon sanctuary. Pope Leo will meet with clergy and other Church officials there.
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HARISSA, Lebanon — In the mountains near Beirut, a giant statue of the Virgin Mary atop a spiral pedestal stretches its hands toward the Mediterranean Sea, visible beyond the railing of the shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon.
It’s a quiet place; very remote, although it is not spared from the country’s seemingly endless cycle of economic turmoil and security threats.
Lebanon is a small, multi-faith country that is about 30 percent Christian – the highest percentage of any country in the Middle East. Last week, the country quietly celebrated the 82nd Independence Day from French rule – without big parades or festivities due to what the Lebanese usually call “the situation”.
The current situation is a year-old ceasefire with Israel that has been regularly broken by the Israeli military, including a drone strike in Beirut last week that killed the second-in-command of the militant group Hezbollah. The country’s financial collapse in 2019 and a devastating port explosion a year later, which killed 218 people, still cast a long shadow.
A statue of the Virgin Mary at Notre-Dame du Liban facing the Mediterranean. The shrine is an important place of pilgrimage for Christians and Muslims, who also revere Mary as the mother of a prophet.
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The event’s Lebanese-American organizer, Neiman Azzi, reviews the progress of preparations for the Pope’s visit to the Maronite Catholic Patriarchate. Azzi says security is paramount in the preparations, but he hopes the visit will send a message that Lebanon is not about war and killing.
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“The mission of the Church is for everyone, for all of Lebanon,” says Father Fadi El Mir, responsible for the logistics of the papal visit to Our Lady of Lebanon, where Pope Leo will address clergy and other religious on Monday. “Poverty in our country is increasing every day and that is why the Pope will say many things to encourage us to be more effective in society and especially in our Church.”
In France, he cared for young Lebanese people in difficulty who not only left, he said, but rather “escaped” an impossible situation in Lebanon, where there are few opportunities to earn a living or provide for their families.
Father Fadi, who has served in missions including South Africa and France since his ordination in 1967, says people want the Church to be more “merciful” and more responsive to them, particularly in Lebanon’s many Catholic hospitals and schools.
He speaks matter-of-factly about being shot while in charge of a school in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre.
“They shot at the doors as I was going in. I don’t know why,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.
This is the same large Christian school where a priest was killed 40 years ago by militants who didn’t want him, he said. Southern Lebanon is predominantly Shiite Muslim, as is the student population in Catholic schools, widely considered to offer better education than the public school system.
Father Fadi says any tension between religious groups in Lebanon is political and not rooted in the community.
Israeli attacks during the war with Hezbollah devastated Christian and Muslim villages along the Lebanese-Israeli border in the south.
Many Christians are unhappy that Pope Leo is staying in Beirut and northern Lebanon during his visit.
Father Fadi, a member of the Lebanese organizing committee for the visit, said he asked Pope Leo of the Vatican to visit the south.
“I said the people there need his presence. It would be great for him to see the people of Tyre, in this region,” he said. “They said, ‘No, no, it’s impossible’.”
He said he understood it was for security reasons.
Statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in a cave in Canna, today in southern Lebanon, where Jesus is said to have performed his first miracle: transforming water into wine. Christians now constitute a small minority in the predominantly Muslim village of Canna.
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“A source of strength for us”
The district of Tyre, in southern Lebanon, includes part of the Galilee that extends into northern Israel. This is where Jesus would have preached, notably in the village of Canna, in present-day Lebanon. According to the Bible, at a wedding in Canna, Jesus performed his first known miracle: turning water into wine.
Canna’s Christians now constitute a small minority among Muslim residents. The hillside cave where Jesus and Mary are said to have rested is open to visitors, but on a recent afternoon it was deserted – with burnt out candles indicating prayers but not a single visitor.
The nearby village of Alma al-Shaab, the only remaining 100 percent Christian community in the Tire district, is left with only a fraction of its population after Israeli airstrikes demolished or damaged nearly 300 homes and the town’s infrastructure during the war with Hezbollah.
Mayor Chadi Sayah, elected five months ago, organized a new ambulance financed by donations from residents and a new garbage truck after the destruction of the previous one.
As in many villages, people here work and save for decades to build multi-generational homes. Some of the damaged houses were small stone houses 400 years old; other new constructions with swimming pools and gardens now destroyed.
Chadi Sayah, the new mayor of Alma al-Chaab, in front of a destroyed house. The village held street parties, including a Christmas party, before the destruction. Sayah, a math teacher, says the town’s residents pooled their money to replace the destroyed ambulance and have a new water tank and garbage truck. But there is still no electricity or running water.
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The ruins of a house in the village of Alma al-Chaab, near the Israeli border. This number constitutes a file for any future request for reconstruction by the Lebanese or regional government. Lebanon is in an economic crisis and says it has no money to rebuild – displaced residents say they saved for years to build their homes and have nothing left.
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Almost everything grows here: oranges, olives, avocados and pomegranates. There are palm trees and pine trees which produce precious pine nuts, a source of income for the village. Sayah shows an area where hundreds of pine trees were cut down during Israel’s occupation of the village in 2024.
On the outskirts of Alma al-Shaab, the Israeli border and military posts are less than a kilometer away with the coast of the Israeli town of Nahariya visible in the distance. In the other direction, a view of the bright blue waters of Naqoura Bay in Lebanon.
Sayah, on leave as a mathematics teacher, says the village has not received much support, either from the state – which he says is not in a position to help anyone – or from the Church.
“We love the Lebanese state. But they should love us as much as we love them,” he said, pointing out that a year after a ceasefire, they have no electricity or running water. “We are part of Lebanese land. We want to stay here.”
He also said he hoped for more support from the Catholic Church and the Maronite Catholic Church.
“We thought the Church should help us rebuild,” he says. “If they want Christians to stay in this region, they have to help them.”
He read from a letter he wrote to Pope Leo trying to persuade him to come to the South, saying that “your visit, however brief, would be a deep source of strength for us, a sign that the Church remembers her children on the borders and a message to the world that these lands and their inhabitants are not forgotten.”
He says he will not attend any of the Pope’s events – nor will many of the village’s residents. Instead, they will harvest and plant new pine trees to replace those cut down during the war.
