Leo XIV… Lebanon and the Third Independence!

Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Lebanon is not an ordinary event, it is a historic moment with exceptional meaning. In this land of message, and across the region and the world, major confrontations converge: peace in the face of war, dialogue in the face of violence, moderation in the face of fanaticism, diversity in the face of uniformity, humanization in the face of populism, the constitution in the face of martial rule, the law in the face of chaos, citizenship in the face of Minoritism and Majoritism, the state in the face of non-statehood, governance in the face of corruption. Lebanon and the free world are experiencing these struggles at a time when the country holds a rare opportunity to prove its ability to rise again.

For five decades, the Holy See has never lost hope in Lebanon as a “model state” despite political, economic, and sovereign collapses. A cardinal once said: “You believe historical Lebanon is dying, but its resurrection will come at the hands of its elite, residents and expatriates.” It was a clear sign that the real wager remains on the Lebanese themselves.

The late Pope Francis confronted this reality with spiritual and political clarity. He embraced the Lebanese flag and mobilized Vatican diplomacy to defend Lebanon’s civilizational identity, yet he declined to visit Beirut at that time, sending a message without ambiguity: no to an alliance of minorities, no to non-statehood, no to corruption, no to the Church’s alignment with political power, no to transforming Lebanon into a platform for conflict. It was an affirmation that the Lebanese state was eroding and that Lebanon’s civilizational formula was under threat.

Pope Leo XIV now comes bearing a unifying title: peace. Peace here is not only the opposite of war, but the opposite of moral collapse, national abdication, and complicity in destroying the state. It is an act of resistance against illicit arms, against alliances that fabricate imagined minorities, against fanaticisms that undermine the constitution, paralyze institutions, and threaten coexistence.

He comes to affirm that Lebanon deserves life, deserves resurrection, and deserves a state that reflects its message. He comes to reawaken the will of an exhausted people and to remind a hesitant elite that the world still sees in Lebanon a space of freedom and responsibility. His choice of Lebanon as his first stop after Turkey is no coincidence, it is a message that Lebanon’s collapse strikes the core of pluralism and coexistence in the entire East and the wider world.

His message to the Lebanese is clear: “Either you save your state, or you lose your mission.” There is no room for half a state or half a sovereignty, no mixing of good governance with political manipulation, no surrender to the blackmail of arms under the pretext of civil peace. True peace rests on citizenship, on the constitution, and on international legitimacy.

His message to the world is equally clear: “Saving Lebanon is defending the human being,” defending threatened pluralism, and preserving a bridge between East and West. Peace becomes a liberation project: freeing the human being from fear, the state from subordination, politics from corruption, and Lebanese identity from distortion.

His visit becomes a chance to write a new chapter, the third independence: the independence of the state from destroying the sovereignty, the independence of truth from falsification, the independence of the human being from systems that crush the common good.