It's very strange that other Middle Eastern patriarchs have been breaking the announcements about the Pope's visit to Lebanon this year, but not the Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon himself. The I-media/AGI item earlier today has been confirmed by this longer story from CNA, reporting on announcement by the Greek Melkite Patriarch of Antioch (Syria). Back in February, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Mons. Fouad Twal, gave the first concrete information about the visit in his homily on the Feast of the Presentation, saying the Pope would deliver his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the 2010 Sunday Assembly on the Middle East "when he travels to Lebanon in September".
Patriarch of Antioch discloses
dates for Pope's visit to Lebanon
By Benjamin Mann and Alan Holdren
Rome, Italy, Mar 16, 2012 (CNA/EWTN News).- Rumors of a papal trip to Lebanon have been confirmed by the head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, which will be among the Eastern Churches in the region who will welcome Pope Benedict XVI at the start of his Sept. 14-16 visit.
Right photo, the Holy Father met the Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon, Bechara Boutros Rai, in April last year, one month after the Patriarch was elected; left, photo, Patriarch Gregorios at his news conference yesterday.
“We came to him and now he's coming to us,” said Patriarch Gregorios III, a major participant in the 2010 synod of bishops on the Middle East at the Vatican. He confirmed recent talk of a papal visit during a March 15 press conference at the Melkite Catholics' headquarters in Rome, after he met with the Pope.
The Pope “will come to support Christians so that they are united,” the Patriarch said, according to Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper.
The Melkite Catholic leader will give a discourse in the Pope's presence on the afternoon of Sept. 14, at the Church of St. Paul at Harissa.
Patriarch Gregorios, who is based in the Syrian capital Damascus, said the Pope would be making the visit “for all of the Middle East.” Pope Benedict may even stop over in Syria “if the situation improves,” according to the Eastern Catholic patriarch.
Along with a “message of peace” for all people of the region, the Pope will consign his post-synodal apostolic exhortation summarizing the conclusions and recommendations of the 2010 Synod for the Middle East.
That gathering gave top priority to the problem of how to keep Middle Eastern Catholics and other Christians from leaving their historic homelands, as circumstances in the region have increasingly forced them to do in large numbers over the past decade. The Synod took place just a few months before the Arab world erupted in a series of ongoing and often violent revolutions.
Concern over the survival of some Middle Eastern churches has grown following the rise of political Islam in Egypt and the prospect of a civil war in Syria.
Lebanon, by contrast, is considered a model of stability and religious coexistence in the Middle East. The country's power-sharing system divides different leadership offices between Muslim groups and the Maronite Catholics, who are led by Patriarch Bechara Rai and make up 21 percent of the population.
The Pope was invited to Lebanon by its Sunni Muslim prime minister Najib Mikati, during his November 2011 visit to the Vatican.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/04/2012 03:43]