Pope Leo XIV could visit Lebanon before the end of the year, the leader of the country’s Maronite Catholics said Tuesday.
In an interview with the Saudi-based television station Al Arabiya, Cardinal Bechara Boutros Raï, patriarch of the Maronite Catholic Church, said Pope Leo XIV “will come to visit Lebanon sometime between now and December,” adding that he was not sure when the trip would be.
“The visit will happen after a decision from the Vatican about when it will take place, so until now it’s not yet determined. But preparations for the visit are underway, though the exact timing is still unknown, waiting for the Vatican to announce it,” Raï said.
The Vatican has not yet announced any official international trips for the new pontiff, but speculation has swirled for months about where his first journeys abroad may take him. Many expect his inaugural trip to include a stop in Nicaea — modern-day İznik in northwestern Turkey — to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council. The most likely date is Nov. 30, St. Andrew’s Day, when a Catholic delegation traditionally visits Turkey.
Reports have also suggested that Pope Leo XIV could add other stops to a Turkey visit. The National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, reported last month that a papal visit to Algeria — following in the footsteps of St. Augustine, who was bishop of Hippo in what is now Annaba — was among itineraries under consideration. Lebanon has now emerged as another possible destination.
A papal trip to Lebanon was long discussed under Pope Francis, but the country’s political and economic crises complicated planning. Francis publicly expressed his desire to visit Lebanon during an in-flight press conference returning from Iraq in March 2021. A few months later, Vatican officials said a visit would depend on the formation of a government.
In April 2022, then-President Michel Aoun announced that Francis would travel to Lebanon that June, but the trip never materialized. Lebanon was also floated as a potential meeting place between Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill after the start of the Ukraine war, an encounter that never happened.
Lebanon endured a prolonged political vacuum after Aoun’s term ended in October 2022. The country remained without a head of state until Joseph Aoun was elected president on Jan. 9, 2025.
The last papal visit to Lebanon was in September 2012, when Pope Benedict XVI visited Beirut and other parts of the country. Since then, Lebanon has been battered by the Syrian civil war, which brought in more than 1.5 million refugees, a financial collapse that saw the Lebanese pound lose 97% of its value against the U.S. dollar since 2019, and the devastating Beirut port explosion in 2020. Electricity outages left citizens with power for only hours a day during the worst of the crisis.
Tensions also remain high along Lebanon’s southern border. During the Gaza war, Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs in September and October 2024. Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Sept. 27, 2024, heightening fears of a broader conflict with Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s population of nearly 6 million is about 68% Muslim, divided between Sunnis and Shiites, and about 28% Christian, most of whom are Maronite Catholics, according to 2020 statistics from the Pew Research Center.
While the Vatican has not responded to a request for comment on Raï’s remarks, speculation continues about where Pope Leo XIV may travel in coming years. Spanish Catholics have expressed hope that Leo could visit Barcelona, Spain, next year for the completion of the Sagrada Família. Trips to Peru and the United States have also been discussed for 2026 — a year that will mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.
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ACI MENA correspondent Elias Turk provided the translation from Arabic of the cardinal’s remarks for this CNA article.
