Society

Almost three weeks of war and nearly a million displaced people. The axe has fallen. Displaced people who have essentially chosen the capital, already stifled in a Lebanon bleeding economically and, above all, devoid of political will to change a status quo that has become totally obsolete. A state of affairs that not only hinders progress but is, let's say it without ambiguity, responsible for all our ills. No country in the world, without a strong or at least respected state, can exist. Today, it is essentially the Shiites who are displaced. The very people that Hezbollah claims to protect. And the most frightening thing is that, destitute in tents and in the rain, many continue to swear allegiance to this party which has no god but itself. One can question the effectiveness of the indoctrination exercised by this militia, but it primarily reveals a political fact: the military entity and the political entity mutually nourish each other and regain strength in a context where the State, incapable of enforcing its sovereignty, finds itself powerless to regulate or integrate an entire community. In Lebanon, displacement is never a simple logistical problem. It's not just about housing, feeding, caring. It's about containment. Containing old tensions, latent fears, fractures that we have become accustomed to circumventing rather than resolving. And as often, what we postpone eventually returns, but worse. No one has ever eradicated anyone. It is therefore not a question of excluding Shiites from the equation, but of knowing how to integrate this community and its ideology within a currently fluctuating geography. Because beyond humanitarian reception, there is a tangible suspicion — which did not come from nowhere — and the fear of making room for someone whose activity is unknown, and who, by being a target, could cause what is trivially called collateral damage. This climate of distrust can only provoke sedition and close doors. Yet, the spirit of solidarity of the Lebanese has never faltered. We saw it in 2006, then after October 7th. But today, it faces an unprecedented obstacle: the fear of being exposed. Furthermore, while Lebanon displays a fragile coexistence, it has never truly shed the divisions created by the civil war. Certainly, technically, there is no longer an East or a West, but in people's minds, there is. And these divisions are rooted in a system of eighteen communities attempting to cohabit, each carrying its cultures, its narratives, and its sometimes diametrically opposed ideologies. These divisions have never been truly integrated into the state fabric. They have been managed, patched up, arranged, but they remain a legacy that each crisis reopens. There is also the immediate need for survival, to save what remains of the remnants of a life too shortened by expectations that struggle to emerge. The absence of citizenship in Lebanon, complicated by this communal system, is often rightly mentioned. But what this million displaced people highlights is that this absence of citizenship has concrete consequences: an inability to integrate segments of the population, a state paralyzed by its inertia, or even ineptitude. A million displaced people to house in dilapidated and crumbling infrastructures: a humanitarian and health catastrophe already underway. And the slogans, allegiances, rumors, and conspiracy theories, all this exacerbates the problem, but also serves to absolve the state of what it does not want to undertake. It's not about waking up and, with a magic wand, executing a decision. It's about starting to show an act of goodwill, even if it were to end in failure. Every war ends around a negotiating table. Will that of 2026 see the painful birth of a nascent state? Because by constantly managing in emergencies, postponing decisions, compromising with the unacceptable, we don't just mismanage. We get used to the idea that there is no alternative. And that, perhaps, is the most dangerous. Because at this rate, soon there won't be much left to displace. Nor to save. Any minister, however well-intentioned, cannot successfully implement their strategy if hindered by the hierarchy of their ministry. The systematic cleansing of institutions has never truly begun, and yet it is the key to the solution: a solid state that sanctions when necessary, that regulates the proper functioning of the country. For whether we like it or not, we must accept each other to keep this country... unless we have already decided to lose it.

The Intelligence Monopoly Ended. For most of human history, one assumption remained unquestioned: intelligence belonged to us alone. We were the only species capable of abstract reasoning, scientific accumulation, technological scaling, and political organization. Intelligence was our monopoly — and therefore our power. That monopoly is now over. Artificial intelligence systems already outperform humans in pattern recognition, large-scale code generation, protein folding, predictive modeling, and increasingly in scientific hypothesis formation. In domain after domain, the ceiling of human cognition is no longer the frontier. This is not just a technological shift. It is a civilizational one. The real question is not whether AI will become more capable than humans in specific tasks. It already has. The real question is whether control, agency, and strategic authority will gradually migrate from humans to systems — not through rebellion, but through delegation. AI Singularity Could Happen This Year One of the most striking metaphors offered by leading AI researchers is this: imagine a “country of geniuses” suddenly appearing — tens of millions of minds more capable than any Nobel Prize winner or military strategist. Every intelligence service would treat such an event as the greatest national security disruption in a century. Now remove the metaphor. Replace people with code. AI systems are scalable, replicable, networked intelligences. They do not sleep. They do not fatigue. They operate at machine speed. And they are being embedded simultaneously into finance, logistics, research labs, surveillance systems, and military operations. Some developers now speak of an approaching “AI singularity,” even suggesting that decisive thresholds could be crossed this year. Such claims should be treated with caution. Predictions of imminent superintelligence have often proven premature. But the signal matters. The velocity of capability growth has reached a level where geopolitical and civilizational implications can no longer be dismissed as speculative. From Tool to Infrastructure Early generative AI systems were conversational tools. They drafted emails, summarized reports, and generated content. The real inflection point came when AI began writing executable software end-to-end. Code is infrastructure. Financial markets run on code. Energy grids run on code. Agriculture runs on code. Weapons systems run on code. As AI increasingly designs, tests, and deploys this software autonomously, it shifts from being a tool to becoming an operational layer within civilization itself. Humans move from authors to supervisors. Over time, expertise atrophies. Dependency deepens. This is not conquest. It is voluntary outsourcing. The Fear: Robots vs. Fragility Popular culture imagines humanoid robots turning on humanity. That scenario is dramatic — could it happen in the future? True physical AI control at scale would require control over mining, semiconductor fabrication, energy production, logistics, manufacturing, and agriculture. Today, modern agriculture already depends on software. Financial clearing systems depend on software. Energy distribution depends on software. Pharmaceutical production depends on software. Taking full control would require integrated and coordinated control of the entire chain. The more immediate risk is systemic fragility. Modern civilization is already hyper-optimized. Supply chains are tuned for efficiency, not resilience. Critical infrastructure is digitally interconnected. Automation reduces redundancy. If AI-generated code becomes dominant in these systems — and human coding expertise diminishes — society becomes structurally vulnerable. A major systemic malfunction, whether malicious or accidental, could cascade rapidly. This is not science fiction. It is a systems engineering problem: over-optimization creates brittleness. History shows that highly efficient systems often collapse under stress. The more civilization removes humans from the loop in pursuit of productivity, the harder it becomes to recover when failure occurs. When AI accelerates optimization across all domains simultaneously, resilience declines. The danger is not that machines will hate us. The danger is that systems will become too efficient to fail safely. The Most Credible Catastrophic Risk: Bio + AI The most serious near-term existential risk is not robot armies. It is biological automation. AI systems now: • Predict protein structures • Model viral mutations • Optimize molecular design • Operate robotic laboratories Closed-loop “AI scientist” systems — where models design experiments and robots execute them — are rapidly advancing. This holds enormous promise: faster vaccines, cheaper therapeutics, breakthrough drugs. But it lowers barriers. Unlike nuclear weapons, engineered pathogens do not require vast industrial infrastructure. They require knowledge and tools. AI accelerates both. The most plausible catastrophic scenario is not an AI deciding to destroy humanity. It is a human actor, empowered by AI, unleashing a pathogen with higher transmissibility and lethality than naturally occurring viruses. This risk is acknowledged within biosecurity circles. It remains low probability — but high impact. And the economic pressure to automate biology continues to intensify. The AI Arms Race AI development is unfolding within geopolitical rivalry. The United States and China compete for dominance in semiconductors, large models, autonomous systems, and military integration. Russia and Iran pursue asymmetric capabilities. Europe seeks strategic autonomy. In such an environment, restraint appears as weakness. Defense-oriented technology firms such as Palantir, led by Alex Karp, argue openly that the only way to prevent AI misuse is to deploy it faster than adversaries. The logic resembles Cold War nuclear deterrence — but with a crucial difference. Nuclear weapons were centralized and slow. AI weapons are distributed and fast. Deterrence shifts from Mutual Assured Destruction to Mutual Assured Disruption — cyber sabotage, automated targeting, infrastructure interference, and financial destabilization. Decision cycles compress. When systems operate at machine speed, human leaders fear being outpaced more than being mistaken. Ukraine: War at Machine Tempo The war in Ukraine illustrates this transformation. Drone warfare, AI-assisted targeting, and real-time data fusion all accelerate operational tempo. The most consequential change is speed. Detect. Classify. Decide. Strike. As this loop compresses, human control shifts from directing to supervising. Escalation risks increase because political decision-making cannot match algorithmic tempo. The battlefield becomes a software laboratory.War becomes iterative and data-driven.Precision increases — but so does brittleness. The Levant and the Middle East For the Middle East, AI is not theoretical. The region already operates in a landscape shaped by drones, cyber operations, and surveillance-heavy security models. States such as Israel have advanced military AI capabilities. It has demonstrated their effectiveness in its decapitation strategy against Hezbollah in Lebanon, tracking and targeting individuals through drone surveillance, mobile phone activity, and surrounding pattern analysis. Iran invests in asymmetric and cyber tools. Gulf states invest heavily in digital infrastructure and smart governance. But long-term success depends on: Data Sovereignty — Who controls the data infrastructure? Technological Dependence — Will regional states rely entirely on US or Chinese platforms? In a world of concentrated AI capability, states without indigenous competence risk becoming digital dependents. Strategic autonomy in the 21st century will be measured not only in energy reserves or military hardware, but in compute capacity, data governance, and algorithmic expertise. Governance in the Age of Algorithms AI is also transforming domestic governance. Systems are deployed for border control, fraud detection, predictive policing, tax enforcement, and surveillance. These applications promise efficiency and security. They also centralize authority and reduce transparency. In liberal democracies, legitimacy depends on explainability and accountability. Algorithmic governance challenges both. In countries like China, facial recognition and AI enable constant citizen monitoring. This is not tyranny by design. It is concentration by default. Efficiency has political consequences. Disempowerment vs. Extinction The most likely scenario is not the extinction of humanity. It is disempowerment. AI may drive scientific discovery, optimize economies, manage logistics, and increasingly influence military and policy decisions. Humans remain — but no longer central. Democracy assumes informed human agency. When decisions migrate to systems too complex for public comprehension, legitimacy erodes. The danger is that this transition happens faster than humans and nations are prepared for. It also raises the question of whether traditional concepts of sovereignty — territory, people, and governance — remain sufficient in the age of algorithmic power. Halting AI development is neither realistic nor desirable. Selective restraint is probably the only viable way forward: • Mandatory human oversight in biological research • Redundant non-AI fallback systems in critical infrastructure • Air-gapped controls for essential services • International norms on autonomous weapons • Stronger cyber and biosecurity frameworks Yet chatbots have already demonstrated their ability to circumvent monitoring algorithms designed to control their activity and to interact with other systems in ways not fully anticipated by their designers. Unmanaged and autonomous acceleration is a real risk. Conclusion: Control May Be Surrendered AI will not wake up one morning and declare war on humanity. But economic competition, geopolitical rivalry, and institutional inertia may lead us — step by step — to delegate authority beyond our ability to reclaim it. Control may not be seized. It may be surrendered. For the first time in history, humanity confronts an intelligence not bounded by biology.We are no longer the smartest agents in the system. The question is whether we remain the wisest.

Cinema, Architecture, and Power Seen some time ago, it is the season of year-end film rankings that brings The Brutalist, Brady Corbet’s film, back to my mind. The film appears in several rankings, since although it is a 2024 production, its international release took place in 2025. And, by sheer coincidence perhaps, this film resurfaces at a timely moment in my life, as it coincides with a period in which the notion of power manifests itself in all its forms: in its moral perversions, through the Epstein affair; in its arrogance, through the capture of Maduro; in its violence, through the repression of protesters in Iran; and in its new incarnations. I am thinking in particular of the importance now granted to the control of digital space, symbolized recently by Israel’s intention to invest in ChatGPT in order to influence its responses in a direction favorable to its interests. If I speak of a “timely moment,” it is first and foremost because The Brutalist is a film about power, as is often the case with films that revolve around architects or architecture itself. Several recent films bear witness to this, such as The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer, with its enclosure wall erected to block out the atrocities committed in the Auschwitz camp, or Megalopolis by Francis Ford Coppola, with its analogy between the Roman Empire and the American Empire. And even if architecture is not directly at the center of the narrative, I also think of The Apprentice, which, by revisiting the early career of Donald Trump as a real estate developer, reminds us how power is, above all, a matter of controlling space. There is, of course, a vast body of literature on the subject, and in my own case I am particularly reminded of Michel Foucault’s work on disciplinary society. In these works, Foucault draws on the model of the panoptic structure, a form of carceral architecture enabling constant surveillance, to analyze how power, through its organization of space, seeks to regulate behavior without needing to manifest itself continuously. And to return to Donald Trump, more than these recent films, there is one film that functions as a mirror to The Brutalist: The Fountainhead by King Vidor, released in 1949 and adapted from a novel by the high priestess of libertarianism, Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand, who was frequently invoked at the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term, as he was surrounded by figures such as Elon Musk, adherents of this philosophy advocating a minimal state in order to unleash the forces of individualism and what she called “rational selfishness.” If this film mirrors The Brutalist, it is because in both cases we encounter an architect thwarted in his ambitions, but by two diametrically opposed forms of power. The power of society and the constraints of the state in The Fountainhead, where an architect refuses to sacrifice his vision to meet the demands of a collective incapable of recognizing his genius. And the power of the “rational egoist” in The Brutalist, where we follow a Holocaust survivor whose American dream culminates in his rape by the wealthy industrialist who commissioned him to build a community center. Without attempting to decide which of these two forms of power is ultimately the lesser evil, what strikes me as most compelling is the way in which, despite everything, László Tóth, the architect at the heart of The Brutalist, manages to resist the power to which he is subjected. Time as a Form of Resistance to Power This is, above all, why now is the right time to recall The Brutalist. Especially for me, as a Lebanese, and perhaps for others as well, since one of the paradigms of this new form of power, based on control over digital space, lies in dividing individuals between those who are entitled to exercise freedom of expression and those for whom doing so entails risk. There is the example of Israel and ChatGPT, but one might also think of entry into the United States, where access to one’s social media history is now required. It is precisely this form of resistance that The Brutalist addresses: the ability to tell one’s story and articulate one’s vision of the world despite these constraints. In the film, this idea takes shape through the way László Tóth secretly subverts the commission given to him by the wealthy industrialist in order to preserve a trace of his personal history. The building he constructs throughout the film ultimately reveals itself to be a replica of the concentration camp where his family was imprisoned. More than Michel Foucault, whose analysis focuses on the structure of power, this notion of resistance brings to mind the work of Michel de Certeau. In The Practice of Everyday Life , de Certeau analyzes how, in the face of the “strategies” employed by power to control knowledge and space, it remains possible to develop “tactics” of resistance. These arts of tactics share a common feature: they are articulated around the notion of time. Thus, while power devises strategies to master physical or digital space, the tactician possesses time, enabling them to slip beneath the radar of power and the “discipline” it seeks to impose. While the example most often cited to illustrate this idea is the chapter “Walking in the City,” where de Certeau shows how one can always invent one’s own path within a space planned by another, The Brutalist above all evokes for me his concept of the “wig” ( la perruque ). Through this concept, de Certeau describes the way one can divert time and materials within a workplace in order to do something for oneself. And alongside time, the other defining aspect of tactics in de Certeau’s thought emerges in this quotation from his essay: “Everyday life invents itself through a thousand ways of poaching.” It is this art of using time, and this poaching, tinkering subject described by de Certeau, that I find myself thinking about today, as the disciplinary society described by Foucault appears to be entering a new phase with the digital tools now placed at the disposal of power. The Tomb Instead of the Hut To conclude with an architectural metaphor, whether one considers de Certeau’s work or what is symbolized by the structure built by László Tóth, this brings to mind writings on the history of architecture that often question which came first: tombs or huts. Without seeking to answer this question, what interests me most in the distinction between these two architectural forms is that the hut represents the ephemeral, whereas the tomb reflects a desire to leave a trace through time. And if my own sensibility leans toward what the tomb represents, it is certainly not an invitation for those who resist to dig their own graves, but rather an invitation to take the time to construct metaphorical tombs in order to thwart the strategy of power that seeks to erase certain voices and entire segments of history.

All the thinkers and political leaders who continue to reflect on the unveiling of the countless facets of the Lebanese war, all those drawn to what Michel de Certeau called “cultural poaching, through which non-specialists and the dominated fashion a space of their own,” were struck by the passing, on November 8, of a friend and leading figure who was, and will remain, the essayist Jean-Claude Guillebaud (1944–2025). A journalist and editor, winner of the Albert Londres Prize in 1972, a great reporter and war correspondent (notably for Le Monde, Sud-Ouest, La Vie, among others) for more than two decades, and co-founder and president of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) from 1987 to 1993, Guillebaud authored some forty reports and essays, dazzling in the richness of their references. An editor with a luminous instinct, curious about everything, his books leave one with the impression that he had read everything, noted everything. His death, a loss for French and international journalism, is also a loss for Lebanon, which with him loses a committed witness, a great journalist who saw, understood, and made others understand Lebanon. His passing should also be an occasion to reflect on the memory of the Lebanese wars and to finally get to the heart of the matter—something that will not happen as long as the Lebanese themselves have not become aware of what Jean-Claude Guillebaud discovered there. The Ground Swell of October 2019 Jean-Claude Guillebaud’s last contact with Lebanon coincided with the groundswell of the “October Revolution” of 2019. Triggered by one injustice too many—the government’s attempt to tax the free WhatsApp application, in desperate search of easy revenue—the popular uprising led tens of thousands of Lebanese, thirsty for “a hoped-for but ravaged Lebanese citizenship” (in Guillebaud’s words), to thwart, for a few brief weeks, a political system built on “everyone for himself, omnipresent corruption, and the absence of even minimal citizenship” (ibid.). He reported on it in the weekly La Vie, in an article whose title echoed a saying of John Paul II: “Lebanon Is a Message” (La Vie, November 12, 2019). There he paid tribute to the Lebanese who had taken to the streets to express their rejection of corruption and political cynicism, at a time when many were convinced that the very soul of Lebanese society was irredeemably rotten. This was not Jean-Claude Guillebaud’s first encounter with Lebanon. Having come to cover the early months of a civil war that would stretch on for years, his experience as a reporter brought him into contact with many of the conflict’s protagonists, among them the deputy and statesman Samir Frangieh, whose friendship and integrity—not to mention his state of health—would matter deeply in Guillebaud’s life. In his moving short book entitled How I Became a Christian Again (Points-Essais), in which he examined the rational path that led him back to the Christian faith, the essayist spoke of his time in Lebanon and of the “funereal gratuitousness of the massacres” that punctuated the civil war—a war that would turn well-brought-up young men into monsters and awaken his conscience. “I think of the great savagery specific to the passage to action that manifested itself in Lebanon during the first years of the civil war,” he wrote. “In the evenings, in Beirut, at the home of Le Monde correspondent Lucien George, we would speak of it late into the night (…). We were living through indescribable horrors (…). Yes, that strange vertigo which, in a matter of moments, can transform an ordinary man into a torturer capable of anything (…). The event thrust before us a question that no longer truly concerned journalism, and that question was that of Evil (…). It was indeed this ancient question that resurfaced with a crash in the streets of Beirut or in the mountains of the Shouf Mountains, given over to the funereal gratuitousness of the massacres.” “The return of this spiritual question of Evil to Western consciousness remains associated with Lebanon in the 1970s,” he wrote (pp. 33–35). The Problem of Evil Taught by the Catholic Church, the existence of the fallen Archangel had in fact been “erased” from Western consciousness by the Enlightenment and the masters of suspicion, who reduced it at most to a personification of evil. Yet, on the doctrinal level, the existence of the fallen angelic creature has never been questioned. Thus, in a famous homily dated June 29, 1972, commenting on the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI declared: “Faced with the situation of the Church today, we have the feeling that through some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the people of God. We see doubt, uncertainty, problems, unease, dissatisfaction, confrontation. Trust in the Church has been lost. Trust is placed instead in the first profane prophet who comes along, speaking to us from the platform of a newspaper or a social movement, and we rush after him to ask whether he possesses the formula of true life, without thinking that we already possess it, that we are its masters (…).” Paul VI’s assertion, corroborated by the Popes who followed him, unsettles our rationalism. One might even speak of the metamorphosis evoked by J.-C. Guillebaud as a kind of inner invasion that temporarily dispossesses a human being of his ordinary conduct. What the Western Jean-Claude Guillebaud rediscovers through contact with the Lebanese war is a “key of interpretation” of a reality lost after the great void left by the “death of God,” which over time gave way to a spiritual desolation bordering on despair, and to an even greater “disappointment” with what the philosopher Emmanuel Mounier, in Introduction to Existentialisms, calls the “replacement myths” (p. 14). Subsequently, Guillebaud’s reflection confirmed him in this rediscovery of demonic dispossession—a rediscovery he qualifies as “flatly anthropological” (p. 47), and not sentimental or pious. This rediscovery said nothing specific about Lebanon or the Orient. What it spoke to concerned human nature in general, in the dimension accorded to it by Christian thought and anthropology. The Stubbornness of Hope What everyone can retain from Jean-Claude Guillebaud is his passion for knowledge, his deep curiosity to understand why things are as they are, or were as they were. His is an intellectual adventure of irreproachable honesty. Deploying all the skill and experience of the investigative journalist in the service of this need to understand, he thus became a reflector of an era. His books will remain beacons in the fog, with the sense of detail he displayed for pleasure and charm, and with quotations that are worth chapters in themselves, such as this one: “It happens,” writes Søren Kierkegaard, “that faith travels incognito” (How I Became a Christian Again, p. 183). Jean-Claude Guillebaud was a Christian of the stature of the great credible witnesses of Western conscience. “I do not believe despite evil; I believe with it. It is in this tension—between the wound of the world and the promise of light—that hope becomes courage,” he wrote in The Faith That Remains (Éditions de l’Iconoclaste, 2017). This sentence captures his spiritual posture perfectly: it speaks of a faith inhabited by grace, a lucid faith that makes contradiction itself—evil, suffering, doubt—a place from which light can emerge. For Lebanon as for France, and for his wife Catherine, his intellectual and spiritual legacy reminds us that in the stubbornness of hope there is an act of resistance. One is tempted to write: “Blessed are the meek.”

In Lebanon, women remain acutely vulnerable to a wide range of abuses and acts of violence, largely because there is still no political will to enact meaningful legislative reform to dismantle entrenched discrimination. The figures speak for themselves: up to November 2025, 89% of all reports made to hotline 1745 – dedicated to domestic violence – came from women. In 57.5% of these cases, the aggressor was the husband. In 2024 alone, at least 17 women were killed; in 60% of those cases, the perpetrator was their spouse. Confronted with this alarming reality and staying true to its mission since its creation in 2005, Kafa – an NGO fighting gender-based violence and exploitation – is calling for the adoption of a comprehensive law, an “essential tool”, it argues, to prevent and combat this phenomenon. To highlight the urgency of such legislation, the organization launched “Ayb”, or “Shame on You”, on 25 November, marking the start of the international “Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Against Women and Girls”, which runs until 10 December, International Human Rights Day. “The adoption of a comprehensive law is all the more crucial because the Lebanese state has still not formally recognized violence against women,” explains Leila Awada, lawyer and co-founder of Kafa. “We’ve seen this before with the domestic violence law. For eight years, we campaigned for a text that would protect women, but Parliament ultimately passed a law covering every family member. The same happened with the law against sexual harassment, which includes no mechanisms to protect women, even though they are the primary victims.” A Model Arab Law Putting words into action, Kafa has drafted a bill designed to prevent and combat violence against women. The work began in 2017, following calls at the time for an exemplary Arab law on the issue. Presented to Parliament in 2024 by several so-called ‘change’ MPs, the document draws heavily on the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention. Concluded and signed on 11 May 2011 in Türkiye, it entered into force on 1 August 2014. To date, it bears the signatures of 43 member states of the Council of Europe and of the European Union, although Türkiye withdrew in 2021, followed by Latvia in 2025. It has been ratified by 37 states, as well as the EU. Binding on its state parties, the convention remains open to non-member countries of the Council of Europe. Four Pillars The draft law put forward by Kafa is built around four pillars: prevention, protection, prosecution, and reparation. Under the prevention pillar, the relevant ministries and authorities are urged to adopt a range of proactive measures. These include, for example, integrating chapters on gender equality into school curricula; tackling school dropout rates, particularly among girls; training investigators in best practices for handling domestic violence complaints and case files; developing programs to strengthen women’s social and economic autonomy; and amending legal provisions that discriminate against women. When it comes to protection, victims of domestic violence should be offered psychological, medical, and social support. The state should also provide free legal advice, help women access employment, and ensure they have safe accommodation. Therapeutic programs for perpetrators of violence should likewise be established. In terms of prosecution, the document presented by Kafa recommends a series of measures ranging from clear definitions of the various forms of violence – including rape and economic violence – to tougher penalties for crimes committed against women. It also provides for a duty to report, easier procedures for filing complaints based on the victim’s place of residence, the suspension of provisions granting mitigating circumstances, the criminalization of all forms of violence against women, the establishment of a specialized judicial body at every stage of investigation and trial, and the possibility for victims to obtain a protection order. As for reparation, Kafa proposes the creation of a fund to support women who have experienced violence, ensuring the payment of advances owed to victims under judicial rulings, the partial or full payment of compensation, and covering the costs required for the rehabilitation of perpetrators. A National Strategy “The document prepared by Kafa effectively serves as a national strategy on how the state should act to protect women and prevent violence,” explains Leila Awada. “Prevention necessarily involves addressing the structural causes of such violence, among which the different personal status laws that each religious community enforces are key. This is why a unified civil code is so important, especially given that the fifteen existing laws create injustice not only between men and women, but also among women themselves, whose rights and obligations remain determined by the laws of the religious community to which they belong.”

Lebanon is preparing for its first papal visit since Benedict XVI’s trip in 2012. But behind the figure of the Supreme Pontiff arriving this Sunday for an official visit lies another story: nearly four decades spent in Peru by Archbishop Robert Francis Prevost — now Pope Leo XIV — where he forged his pastoral mission. A small statue of Martin de Porres stands to the right of the altar in the Vianney parish on the outskirts of the Peruvian city of Chiclayo. The image of this 16th-century saint, born to an enslaved mother, resonates deeply with Lisbeth, a teacher and Venezuelan refugee. It was in this very church that she saw Archbishop Robert Prevost — today Pope Leo XIV — celebrate International Migrants Day, embodying the Church’s social doctrine through action. Lisbeth mentions other figures venerated in her country, such as Our Lady of Coromoto, patron saint of the Bolivarian Republic. She recalls seeing her icon leading a procession commemorating the Venezuelans’ exodus amid the political and economic collapse that has gripped Venezuela since 2017, compounded by U.S. sanctions. From Chiclayo, a metropolitan area of 600,000 inhabitants, Lisbeth is now a member of the Human Mobility and Anti-Trafficking Unit, a branch of Caritas Chiclayo — the Catholic Church’s humanitarian arm. Its founding owes much to the man who is now the leader of the global Church. “This was made possible thanks to the work of Mgr Robert Prevost,” Lisbeth says, remembering a man who was accessible and attentive to the needs of migrants in Chiclayo and beyond. She recalls “his deep concern about the massive Venezuelan migration here in Chiclayo.” The Venezuelan crisis was not only a baptism by fire for Archbishop Prevost; other crises with profound social impacts would confirm that he remained on the front lines, displaying essential qualities: closeness, accessibility, and an ability to listen. “I have an image in mind — you can find it on social media,” recalls Antonieta Pacheco Jara, coordinator for integral ecology at Caritas. “It was during Cyclone Yaku. He went out to the villages in boots. He approached people and he listened. That was essential for any work in inclusion, evangelization, synodality: he listened. He wasn’t just a religious authority giving orders from a comfortable seat. No — he was on the ground, listening.” ⸻ A Church as the People of God When Robert Francis Prevost was appointed bishop of Chiclayo, in northern Peru, in 2015, he had already known the country for three decades. Since 1985, he had risen from missionary to prior of the Augustinian Order — one of the religious orders that played a significant role in the “spiritual conquest” of the Americas during the colonial period. As bishop, Mgr Prevost was a man of action, say his collaborators, fully aligned with Pope Francis’s vision of a Church that is the “people of God.” Opposed to clericalism and committed to synodality, he entrusted laypeople — alongside religious men and women — with the most demanding tasks. He was highly active in pastoral initiatives rooted in the Church’s social doctrine, not just in sermons and speeches. As Augusto Reque of Caritas Chiclayo recalls, he was a “pastor who smelled of his sheep,” referencing a phrase Mgr Prevost once cited in a homily. Augusto, head of the Human Mobility Unit, remembers — with colleague Yolanda Díaz — one of their first encounters with the bishop. The moment revealed the convictions of the future pope, who chose a papal name tied to one of the pioneers of contemporary Vatican social teaching. That first meeting took place during a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Prevost, at their invitation, commemorating the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero — the Salvadoran prelate canonized by Pope Francis, murdered in 1980 by soldiers for opposing the violence of state repression during El Salvador’s civil war. A Man of Action Another episode — mentioned repeatedly during interviews in Chiclayo — illustrates Archbishop Prevost’s active social engagement : his role in addressing the scandal surrounding Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, an ultraconservative organization accused of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse against dozens of victims between 1971 and the 2000s. The book Mitad monjes, mitad soldados compiled testimonies from former members, reviving attention to complaints ignored for years. Following the publication of the investigation, Archbishop Prevost sided with the victims, implementing prevention measures in his diocese and supporting the forced resignation of Cardinal Cipriani after intervention by Pope Francis. Promoted in 2023 to Rome as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, Prevost played a central role in the inquiry into Sodalitium. The Vatican report confirmed 98 victims, including 37 cases of sexual abuse, and exposed the complicity of certain clergy. Archbishop Prevost recommended dissolving the organization and removing its leaders, leading to the expulsion of compromised clerics and the definitive closure of all entities founded by Luis Fernando Figari. The case illustrates Prevost’s full alignment with Pope Francis and the Church’s social teaching. By acting transparently, protecting victims, and challenging corrupt power structures within the Church, he applied principles of justice, accountability, and defense of the vulnerable — core to the Argentine pontiff. These episodes represent only a fraction of Robert Prevost’s life in Peru — from his years as bishop to his broader four-decade ecclesial journey in the Andean nation. Many elements point to Peru as the laboratory where his mission took shape, strengthening his commitment to social doctrine. But it is now to Pope Leo XIV — no longer Robert Francis Prevost — that one must turn when seeking to understand Catholic social teaching through the lens of the Peruvian experience.

The city of Iznik, ancient Nicaea, marked a key stop on Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Turkey, as the pontiff led a service dedicated to Christian unity on the shores of Lake Iznik, south of Istanbul. The ceremony brought together Orthodox and Protestant leaders for a prayer service among the ruins of a submerged 4th-century basilica. The Mass commemorated the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, convened in 325, twelve years after the Roman Empire legalized Christianity. Standing beside Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople and other church leaders, Pope Leo XIV recited the Nicene Creed — a statement of faith still recited by millions of Christians worldwide. The creed was first adopted at the very council that gathered in Nicaea almost 17 centuries ago. “We are all called to overcome the scandal of the divisions that, unfortunately, still exist, and to nurture the desire for unity,” the Pope said in English, emphasizing “the pursuit of fraternity.” The ceremony, presided over by Patriarch Bartholomew I, featured prayers in several languages as well as a cappella polyphonic and Byzantine chants. Representatives from the Coptic, Greek, Armenian, Syriac, and Anglican Churches attended, underscoring the event’s ecumenical character. Non-acceptance to use religion to justify violence The Patriarch urged participants to “follow the path of Christian unity laid out for us,” despite the “divisions” created over the centuries. The Pope also called for “a forceful rejection” of attempts to use religion to justify war or violence, condemning “all forms of fundamentalism and fanaticism,” without naming specific leaders or conflicts. Submerged for centuries, the Iznik Basilica continues to shed light on early Christianity and its martyrs. The ruins were discovered in 2014 by Turkish archaeologist Mustafa Sahin, head of the archaeology department at Uludag University in Bursa, using aerial photography. The remains lie about 50 meters from the shore and two meters below the lake’s surface. “I realized it was an unknown church,” Sahin said. He explained that the Basilica of the Holy Fathers was built around 380 AD on the site where a 16-year-old martyr, Neophytus, was executed for his faith in 303, during the Roman persecution of Christians. Due to climate change, the lake’s water level has gradually fallen, revealing large sections of the basilica, which collapsed after earthquakes in the 11th century and was submerged two centuries later. Basilica of Martyrdom An earlier church erected in Neophytus’s memory hosted the Council of Nicaea in 325 before being destroyed by a powerful earthquake in 358. The later Basilica of the Holy Fathers was named in honor of the 318 bishops who convened to draft the Nicene Creed. The church once held a sarcophagus believed to contain the remains of Neophytus and other martyrs. Their bones now lie just beneath the lake bed. “We have already found about 300 graves,” Sahin said, describing the site as “a cemetery of martyrs.” His team has unearthed evidence of violent deaths — broken limbs and skulls bearing holes and fractures. “These traces show that those buried here were tortured and executed,” he said. Several smaller tile graves, believed to hold the remains of children, have yet to be opened. Each set of bones is excavated, analyzed, and reburied after documentation. “This was not an ordinary cemetery,” Sahin explained. “It was a place of martyrdom, a church of great significance for Christians.” The archaeologist emphasized Turkey’s central role in early Christian history. “Christianity emerged around Jerusalem,” he said, “but without Anatolia, there would be no Christianity,” referring to the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul and other foundational figures of the faith.