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Pope Leo XIV speaks to patients and caregivers at the De La Croix Hospital in Jal el Dib, Lebanon, on December 2, 2025. / Vatican MediaJal el Dib, Lebanon, Dec 2, 2025 / 02:07 am (CNA).Pope Leo XIV told hospital patients and caregivers in Lebanon that he had come to "where Jesus dwells," adding that Christ is present "in you who are ill, and in you who care for the ailing." He delivered the message during a Tuesday morning visit to De La Croix Hospital in Jal el Dib, one of the final stops of his trip to Lebanon as the country continues to struggle with the wounds of conflict and economic collapse.The Holy Father addressed staff, patients, and the Franciscan Sisters of the Cross who operate the institution. Pointing to the hospital's founder, Blessed Yaaqub El-Haddad, Pope Leo described him as a "tireless apostle of charity" whose devotion to the suffering shaped the institution's identity."Your presence is a tangible sign of the merciful love of Christ," Leo told the healthcar...

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Pope Leo XIV prays in silence at the site of the 2020 port explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, on December 2, 2025. / AIGAV PoolBeirut, Lebanon, Dec 2, 2025 / 03:15 am (CNA).Pope Leo XIV paused on the final morning of his trip to Lebanon before the ruins of the Beirut port explosion, praying in silence and placing a wreath in memory of the victims. He also met families of those killed and survivors still carrying the wounds of the 2020 blast.The pope lit a candle and laid down a wreath of red flowers at the site, and seemed at one point to hold back tears. Afterwards, he spoke with family members of victims, some of whom who were holding photographs of their relatives killed in the blast.The pope's silent prayer at the port unfolded against an unresolved search for justice, a grief still felt across Lebanon.Five years after the August 4, 2020 explosion, one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in history, families of the 236 people killed and more than 7,000 wounded say they are still w...

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Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass for an estimated 150,000 people at Beirut's Waterfront in Lebanon, on Dec. 2, 2025. / Credit: Marwan Semaan/ACI MENA.Beirut, Lebanon, Dec 2, 2025 / 04:52 am (CNA).Beirut heard a different kind of voice on Tuesday morning. In a city still marked by the sounds of the 2024 escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, Pope Leo XIV urged Lebanon to rise above violence and division. "Lebanon, stand up. Be a home of justice and fraternity. Be a prophetic sign of peace for the whole of the Levant," he said at a Mass attended by about 150,000 people at Beirut Waterfront.The liturgy closed the final day of the pope's visit to a nation strained by intermittent political paralysis, economic freefall and persistent instability. The Waterfront itself carries symbolic weight. Built on land reclaimed from the sea with rubble from downtown Beirut destroyed in the civil war, it has come to represent both loss and reconstruction.In his homily, Pope Leo spoke of prais...