Lebanon Report 2022, #9: September 2, 2022

Supporters of Hezbollah with a poster of Hezbollah leader Hussein Nasrallah during an election rally in Beirut, Lebanon in May. Nasrallah has claimed that the investigation into the August 4 explosion is biased and called for the judge leading it to step down, while others claim he is hindering the investigation in order to cover up Hezbollah’s own connections to the blast [Source: AP Photo/Hussein Malla/The Times of Israel]

    Pope Francis Commemorates Beirut Explosion, Nuncio Spiteri to Leave Lebanon

    Pope Francis spoke this past month about the August 4, 2020 Beirut port explosion, expressing his prayers for those affected by the tragedy and stating, “truth can never be hidden,” in a seeming reference to attempts by various political elites in Lebanon to obstruct the ongoing investigation into the explosion’s origins. The Pope’s comments came in a General Audience held on August 3, 2022, one day before the two-year anniversary of the tragedy.

    Here is the full text of the Pope’s comments according to Italian news site Il Sismographo, translated from the original Italian:

    “Tomorrow [August 4] is the second anniversary of the explosion of the port of Beirut. My thoughts go out to the families of the victims of that disastrous event and to the dear Lebanese people: I pray that everyone can be consoled by faith and comforted by justice and by truth, which can never be hidden. I hope that Lebanon, with the help of the international community, will continue to walk the path of ‘rebirth,’ remaining faithful to its vocation of being a land of peace and pluralism, where communities of different religions can live in fraternity.”

    ***

    Also in August, the Apostolic Nuncio to Lebanon [the diplomatic representative of the Holy See, equivalent in rank to an Ambassador], Msgr. Joseph Spiteri, ended his mission to the Land of Cedars. Msgr. Spiteri will be moving to a new post in Mexico.

    During several meetings and interviews given during the last few days in his post, Spiteri spoke about several key issues, including the plight of refugees in Lebanon, the upcoming presidential elections, and Francis’ pending visit to the country.

    In a final visit to the Maronite League (an organization promoting the interests of Maronite Christians in Lebanon, which is closely linked to the Maronite Patriarchate in Bkerké), Spiteri encouraged Lebanon’s leaders to overcome their differences.

    “The Vatican still counts on Lebanon’s pluralist message, and I am upbeat that the Lebanese will be able to reach a new formula that saves their distinguished pluralist system,” Spiteri said. He added that “Nothing prevents the state that successfully completed the parliamentary polls from conducting the presidential elections according to the constitutional principles.”

    On the issue of the millions of Syrian refugees still in Lebanon, Spiteri noted that the Lebanese government continues to insist that the refugees be repatriated to safe zones in Syria, and stressed that “Lebanese officials should not cease reminding [the West and the United Nations] of this predicament.”

    Finally, Spiteri touched on the long-debated, and long-anticipated, papal visit to Lebanon.

    “This visit is on the Pope’s agenda,” Nuncio Spiteri said. “He will announce its date when the Vatican departments see that the visit is beneficial for Lebanon.”

    The office of the President of Lebanon announced in May that the Pope would be coming to the country in June, but the planned visit then fell through for several reasons, including the uncertain health of the Pope.

Left, Wadih El-Khazen, Dean of the Maronite General Council, and right, Bishop Joseph Spiteri, the outgoing Apostolic Nuncio to Lebanon, during one of Spiteri’s last meetings in Lebanon as Nuncio, August 21, 2022 [Source: Lebanon National News Agency]

    Apostolic Vicar of Beirut Bishop Essayan: “A Small Miracle in This Terrible Moment”

    The majority of Catholics in Lebanon belong to the Maronite Church, but there is a group under the direct jurisdiction of Rome: the Vicariate Apostolic of Beirut, established in 1953 and using the Latin Rite, with 137 priests and roughly 18,000 faithful as of 2020.

     The Vicar Apostolic of Beirut is Bishop César Essayan.

    Born in Achrafiyeh (eastern Beirut) in 1962, Bishop Essayan studied in Rome and was ordained to the priesthood in 1993. He was given the title of Vicar Apostolic in 2016 – a title which signifies that he is a titular bishop in a region where (Latin Rite) dioceses or parishes have not been established.

    Bishop Essayan recently gave an interview (in Italian) to Vatican News in which he discussed the situation in Lebanon and what the Catholic Church has done to help in the two years following the August 4 explosion.

    Many of the Bishop’s answers to the interviewer’s questions give much-needed context for understanding why, exactly – despite all of the suffering – many in the Church still have hope for Lebanon.

    The original interview with Bishop Essayan, published in Italian on the Vatican News website, can be found here.

    Vatican News: Your Excellency, how are the Lebanese living today? Have the social wounds from the [August 4] blaze healed?

Bishop César Essayan: The balance is not so positive. There are many of us working to try to heal. Many of those who were wounded [in the explosion have since died. Many houses have been rebuilt but there is work still to be done, for many years. Many people are still waiting to undergo facial plastic surgery for the injuries they sustained. The biggest drama, however, is surrounding the facts, the truth about what occurred – it is getting further and further away.

    The judge was initially interfered with. Whether he did a good job or not is not for me to say. In any case, this fact has gradually led the political parties involved to divide the parents of the victims in two: those in favor of the judge and those against. This further clouded the issue, and postponed the possibility of really understanding what happened. So today we have reached a state of profound division, which unfortunately coincides with a division between those who are Christians and those who are Muslims.

    On another level, we realize that the consequences of the explosion will also have an effect on the economic crisis: there is little work, people are leaving, the ones who remain are not doing well. There is another division in the population: between those who are earning in dollars and those who are earning in Lebanese lire [pounds]. Those who work in public service are earning in lire and barely make it to the end of the month if they are not helped by relatives abroad. Others such as restaurant owners earn in dollars. Not many people are able to protest against this, because they no longer have the strength. Not to mention the rise in prices due to the war in Ukraine.

    And then, again, we must not forget the presence of the Syrian [refugees]. Unfortunately, this is creating tensions with the Lebanese. It should be noted that the Lebanese are being given wrong information: many Lebanese say that the Syrians receive aid in dollars, and they get angry. But this is not true.

    In fact, when you go to the bakery there are two lines, the Syrians on one side and the Lebanese on the other. With the Syrians, the whole family comes – if there are five, for example, they take five portions. Usually for the Lebanese it happens that only the father or mother goes, and they take only one portion. These are situations that feed resentment and division. Nothing is easy. It is not just about the explosion at the port of Beirut.

    VN: You have spoken of this economic crisis, one of the worst in Lebanese history. In this regard, there have also been several interventions by ulema [Islamic scholars] from the Arab League. But how much space does the international community have to support the country and what are the priority needs of the population at this stage?

CE: They are the usual needs, in reality. In every case, maybe today it is about helping people meet their basic food needs. So we are giving the families some hot food. Then there are the medicines, the hospitals. We’re seeing a huge tragedy. Very few people are able to go there if they need to, because medical costs have increased dramatically, as if we were on the verge of a war. Then there is the area of ​​education.

    Today we need to survive. Eighty percent of the population now lives below the poverty line. And these are people who have now grown tired. And yet they go on.

    There are problems that have arisen as a result of what happened at the port. We have opened a community center in Beirut where we have a social worker, psychologists (for adults and children). The number of people arriving there is constantly increasing. We used to give about seventy hot meals, now we are giving three hundred. This I say just to give an idea. Those who come to receive medications are increasing month by month: 25-27-29 percent. The lights are almost never on; it all depends on how the generators are working. The state is letting everything go; they think we can fend for ourselves. The population can no longer put up with the state; in short, we are seeing an oppression never before witnessed.

    VN: We all remember the mobilization for the emergency in the aftermath of the incident in the port of Beirut, then there was silence in the media. How has the Church proceeded? How have you supported the people over these two years?

CE: It has to be said that the universal Church has never stopped lending a hand to the local Church. With the Ukrainian crisis, aid may have undergone a slight inflection, but the agencies that depend on the Catholic Church have remained always present in the territory of Lebanon and are doing very, very good work. We must thank both the Holy Father, the Secretariat of State, and the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, who are pushing everyone to monitor the situation. There are always those who help, even with cash to support educational institutions, for example. The Oeuvre d’Orient in France, Aid to the Church in Need, the country of Hungary are helping a lot with regard to, for example, the supply of energy through solar technologies. This is helpful for schools, hospitals. Personally I can say that, although the Apostolic Vicariate of the Latins is not rich – indeed, it is poor – from the help we continue to receive we are able to help many many people in turn.

    Over a thousand food packs a month, 300 hygiene kits, 300 meals a week in Beirut. We managed to get a mobile clinic that goes north and south, among the Syrian refugee camps, to visit mainly children. In short, there is a small miracle, called the Church. I tell everyone that I am very pessimistic but there is a small miracle that takes place with the outstretched hands of the Church in this terrible moment. It’s very beautiful. She tells us: “I will not leave you alone.” The Lord never leaves us alone, he precedes us, everywhere we go.

    I must also add that Pope Francis, the great prophet of our times, with his call to this synodal journey opened up for us paths that allowed for a sharing that we did not experience before. He made us discover that, even though we have lost values ​​on various levels, they are surfacing with those with whom we are close now. These are the values ​​that make us grow: the Lebanese, before entering his home, opens the food package in front of his neighbor’s house and shares with him, because [the neighbor] is in need, like him. These are wonderful things. Perhaps the “great ones” have lost their way, but the poorest among us never have. It is a great lesson of our time.

    VN: A few days ago, another fire seemed as though it might consume the destroyed silos that were at the port, whose remains have become a bit of a symbol of what happened two years ago: is there a risk that all traces will be erased, and that the country and the grave situation that it is in will be forgotten?

CE: Perhaps, because the big problem in Lebanon is that it is not possible to tell the truth, to assume one’s responsibilities, to say: okay, we made a mistake, and we ask for forgiveness. We can’t [continue to] always say: let’s act as if nothing had happened, amnesty for all, the corrupt remain in power. No. The independent parliamentarians, the new ones, wanted the silos to be safeguarded as a symbol not only of the explosion, but of all the violence in the world.

    Wheat is the basic food for everyone. But there are people who understand nothing and want to destroy everything. Maybe it will happen, too, but one day the truth will reach us all.

    [End, interview with Bishop Essayan]

The episcopal ordination of Msgr. César Essayan on October 8, 2016, in Beirut, in the Church of St. Louis of the Capuchins. Essayan was consecrated a bishop by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Eastern Churches [Source: Jean Marie Vaas/InfoCatho]

    Among those who follow or write about current events in Lebanon, as well as among those who are simply experiencing them first-hand, one theme is often repeated: the country may be able to put its current struggles behind it and blossom once again, but it will require help from the international community.

    Another common observation is that there are currently several “competing visions” for the future of Lebanon – as part of a Shia axis led by Hezbollah and Iran, or as part of the Saudi Arabia-led Sunni world, or as an example of a country where people of various faiths, Catholics and Muslims and Druze, can live in harmony.

    As much as we may believe in a vision, or in a mission, however, there is often a point of exhaustion, when the circumstances of life prevent us from continuing to work towards it. This, more than anything, is what explains why so many people are now leaving Lebanon, despite their strong family ties and their love for their land and their culture, as well as their faith.

    In our latest Unitas: Friends of Lebanon meeting, held on August 26, our colleague Aya Naimeh described the difficulty her family had experienced in trying to pay for an operation for her grandfather’s hip.

    “People are sustaining themselves with money from relatives [living abroad],” she said. “My grandpa fell down and had a hip replacement. Relatives abroad paid for the hip operation. I saw a woman asking to remove her husband from the hospital because she didn’t have the 5000 USD to pay for his care.”

    Aya also told us that in Lebanon, people above the age of 76 don’t have access to insurance anymore, as insurance companies have stopped insurance policies because of the crisis. Social security has also been stopped for the past 3 years. “If you don’t have somebody helping from abroad there are no solutions for you,” she said. “Nurses don’t get paid as much…they get paid at the official rate. Nurses wouldn’t enter the room because my grandfather had Covid. We had to switch him from one hospital to the other. These are the best hospitals in Lebanon.”

    Aya noted that electricity is now costing some families around 10,000,000 Lebanese pounds per month (~6000 USD per month) due to the ongoing blackouts. The money crunch also means that students are now prioritizing work, rather than school. She told us that each university class is either 3 or 4 credits, which each cost 333 USD, money that most students do not have. “We don’t know what it’s going to be like,” she said, talking about the upcoming semester at the university where she works.

    “People want to be back,” Aya said. “And they would be back in a second, but the salaries are too low. A good salary is 200 USD. People love their country; most of my friends [returning to Lebanon for summer vacation] postpone leaving Lebanon and going back to their other countries. One week, two weeks. But a basic salary today doesn’t allow you to go to the supermarket one time. It’s a choice between living in Lebanon and having insurance, starting a family… it’s better but it’s not how it was. Many services are now in dollars. This is why they need people from outside to help them.” 

St. Maruthas of Martyropolis, portrayed in the Menologion of Basil II in the Vatican Library [Source: Wikipedia]

    A Monk Who Became an Ambassador Between Two Emperors

    In a time when the divide between East and West seems to be as wide as it has ever been, it is important to remember the examples of those in history who have sought to “build bridges” in their own time. One such individual is St. Maruthas of Martyropolis, a monk of the Syrian Church who became a bishop in Mesopotamia.

    Maruthas was born sometime in the 4th century. Little is known about his early life other than that he was from Syria, which at that time was a borderland between two empires — the Byzantine and the Persian. He was present at the general First Council of Constantinople in 381 and at a Council of Antioch in 383. He is also said to have held two synods at Ctesiphon for the benefit of the Persian Church. As the bishop of Maypherkat (modern-day Silvan, Turkey) he brought into his episcopal city the relics of so many martyrs — most of them victims of the Sassanid Empire in Persia — that it received the surname Martyropolis, “the city of the martyrs.”

    As a bishop, Maruthas traveled to Constantinople in the early years of the 5th century to advocate for the Church of Persia, which was undergoing persecution at the time under the Persian King Shapur II.

    Several years later, the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II sent him as an envoy to the court of Yazdegerd I of Persia, where, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “in spite of the jealousy and intrigues of the Magi, he won the esteem of King Yezdigerd by his affability, saintly life, and, as is claimed, by his knowledge of medicine.”

    Throughout his life, Maruthas worked to bring peace between the two great powers of Constantinople and Persia, while also advocating for Christians who were being persecuted under the Persian regime. In the end, he was indeed successful in bringing about a period of peace.

    Maruthas also translated the canons of the Council of Nicaea into Syriac and wrote an anaphora, or Eucharistic Prayer, in Syriac. The same Syriac that he wrote in, and that was likely his native language, is still used by Maronite Catholics and other Eastern-Rite Syriac Christians today.