Pope Leo Visited Lebanon, But The Country’s Youth Say It’s Not Enough
BEIRUT — Chloe Abi Mansour has been attending Mass sporadically, though she still observes Lent and prays when she feels the need. It's not that she's lost her faith exactly. It's that the Catholic schools where she was educated — the most expensive in Lebanon — just raised tuition by 60%.
It’s that weddings and baptisms cost more than most young Lebanese can afford. It's that when marriages fail, the church treats divorce "like the mafia," as she puts it, prolonging families' suffering to extract more fees.
Still, when Pope Leo XIV arrived in Lebanon for his first papal journey outside the Vatican in early December, Mansour, 23, felt something shift. She watched him stop at the site of Beirut's 2020 port explosion and visit Deir el-Salib to meet marginalized communities.
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“These symbolic stations matter,” she said. “It’s a message, even if I have my criticisms.”
The country is unique in the Middle East: following its revised 1990 constitution, Lebanon’s government keeps strict equality between Muslim and Christian leaders across national institutions. For example, the prime minister must always be a Sunni Muslim, the speaker of parliament must always be a Shia Muslim, and the president must be a Maronite Christian.
However, it is widely acknowledged that Christians now wield outsize power in proportion to their modern population. The country has not taken an official census since 1930, but many estimate Christians (of which Maronite Catholics are the largest group) make up less than one-fourth of the population.
And with more than a quarter of the country’s 4.75 million people leaving the country in waves of mass emigration since 2019 (following wars, economic failures and the Beirut port explosion), the church stands to lose even more members as well as political and cultural power.
For Lebanon's Maronite Church, Mansour represents both the problem and the possibility. Young, educated, culturally Christian but alienated from institutional religion, she is exactly the demographic the church fears losing forever. Church officials estimate 60-70% of those leaving are young people.
The pope's recent three-day visit placed this crisis at the center. On Dec. 1, approximately 12,000 young people between ages 15 and 35 gathered in Bkerke for what church organizers called the visit's most critical event: a direct papal address to Lebanon's youth.
Saad Gharios has three sons. One emigrated by choice. The other two remain, for now. She's watched their Maronite community shrink through the quiet math of economic desperation.
“A young person works long hours for a maximum salary of $800,” Gharios explained. “That doesn't cover rent, electricity, generator fees — any of the basic requirements for life.”
When the pope's visit was announced, Gharios felt hope, even recognizing it for what it was.
“We people live in the euphoria of the moment as a reaction to every event,” she said. “But this visit aims to increase confidence in Lebanon, to help it recover its youth and economy.”
Roads were repaired before the Pope arrived, and they became a symbol of that euphoria.
“The fact they fixed the roads for this visit is positive," she said. “They’re trying to anchor youth in their land.”
But other young people saw those same repairs and felt only bitterness.
J.H., a 22-year-old Sunni Muslim graduate student at Lebanese University, watched the banners go up, streets get paved.
“That money could have been used to serve youth,” she said sharply, gesturing toward her university — lacking professors, electricity, basic organization. “What difference does the Pope's coming make when our state has made us lose hope?”
For J.H. and her friends, the visit felt like a spectacle divorced from their lives.
“My concern, and most young people's concern, is securing a visa and a country that will receive us, because prayers won't provide job opportunities,” she added.
She grew animated about the disconnect, saying, “We fight poverty with prayers, while if half the youth attending mass went to protest in front of ministries, maybe problems would be solved. We don't think in ways that secure the future.”
Voices from the church
Father Georges Yarack, who oversees youth ministry for the Maronite Patriarchate, sees meaning in the Pope making Lebanon his first international visit.
“Though Lebanon's Christians number less than a single Italian diocese out of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide, it receives a special papal visit,” he said. “Lebanon presents a model of accepting others and freedom.”
Roudy Jido, 25, a Syriac Catholic who coordinated the meeting's finances, described marathon preparation sessions extending past midnight.
“This is about cementing Christians' survival,” he said, “supporting Lebanon to restore its position in the East.”
But that message of hope confronts grinding realities that papal visits cannot simply absolve.
Iliane Z., 24, identifies as "a Catholic Christian closer to secularism.”
She was direct: “The visit doesn't concern me. I see it as more political than religious.”
She said she believes it aims to anchor youth “in a country witnessing wide emigration,” but questions whether symbolic gestures address what's driving people away.
“Youth's real concerns are immediate — decent living, education, transportation. We are below the minimum of basic services.”
Her criticism was scathing, adding that “churches have become about interests and gains instead of love. Everything happens through connections." She detailed the costs—expensive weddings, baptisms, the Church's handling of divorce as profit extraction. "Instead of spending massive amounts on receiving the Pope, this money should have gone toward nearly free education and healthcare.”
Jack Issa, 40, who leads the youth committee for the Maronite Diocese of Batroun, acknowledged these challenges, even defending the Church's intentions.
“Youth face enormous challenges — financial crisis, deteriorating conditions, rising divorce rates, smartphones' negative impact on commitment,” he said.
He pushed back against blaming only the clergy.
“Humanity and weakness exist even among clergy, but laypeople must play their role in building bridges based on love, not hatred,” he added.
Issa spoke of his sadness watching Christians dismiss the visit's importance. "This meeting's symbolism matters. We need collective church belonging."
He said: “This visit, long awaited since Pope Francis's days, is necessary to strengthen youths’ attachment after successive crises — wars, COVID, the port explosion, economic collapse — that led to losing confidence in the homeland and sometimes in the church.”
The diaspora perspective
From France, Saad Rizk Allah watched preparations with particular interest. As a representative of the Maronite Foundation for the Diaspora, she was invited to the youth meeting, a recognition of how integral emigration has become to Lebanese Christian identity.
“This meeting is directed at the hopeless segment not provided with requirements for decent living,” she said. “The pope's gesture gives youth the confidence they deserve.”
Rizk Allah noted a stark contrast: “French churches have become nearly empty, but Lebanon's churches remain full.”
She sees Lebanon's Christians as “the last Christians of the East after Iraqi and Syrian Christians' disappearance.”
Whether the pope's visit represents a turning point or a milestone in Christian Lebanon's disappearance remains to be seen. Father Antoine Maroun's congregation has dwindled to handfuls where hundreds once worshipped — not just people disappearing but entire communities, centuries of continuous Christian presence slowly vanishing despite what Rizk Allah thinks, when she compares Lebanon to France.
For Mansour, who watched with cautious interest despite her alienation from institutional religion, the visit offered “a dose of hope for youth despairing from crises, wars, and explosions.”
But she added pragmatically: “Lebanon is the only country with Christians remaining in the Middle East.”
That reality — Lebanon as the last stand — animated everything about the papal visit. Patriarch John X had affirmed months earlier that Christians must hold fast to the land they've long inhabited, calling on the international community to pay attention to the world's oldest Christian community facing “the threat of silent extinction.”
But with Western countries welcoming religious minority refugees, emigration remains, for many young Lebanese Christians, not a betrayal but a rational choice — the difference between $800 monthly salaries and actual futures.
J.H. articulated what many felt, but few said directly: “We don't think in ways that secure the future and anchor youth in Lebanon. We react to moments. We celebrate visits. But the structures pushing people away remain unchanged.”
Whether Pope Leo XIV’s first international journey will ultimately be remembered as a historic renewal or as a final benediction for a fading community depends on questions beyond the Church's control — economic viability, political stability, regional security, and whether Lebanon's young people can envision futures in their homeland.
For now, 12,000 young people gathered in Bkerke heard a pope tell them they matter, they belong, they’re not alone. Whether that message proves sufficient to reverse the tide emptying Lebanon's Christian heartland remains Lebanon's most urgent unanswered question.
This article was published in collaboration with @Egab.
Suzanne Abou Said is a journalist based in Lebanon.