Ref: Untuk melihat video footage, click situs di bawah ini :
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/09/201291433858189620.html
Pope Benedict in Lebanon for peace visit
Pope arrives in Beirut for three-day visit, focusing on religious
tolerance and welfare of Christians in Middle East.
Last Modified: 14 Sep 2012 10:47
A plane carrying Pope Benedict XVI has arrived at Beirut's Rafik Hariri
airport, witnesses said, at the start of a three-day visit aimed at addressing
the position of Christians in a region torn by civil war in neighbouring Syria.
The Lebanese deployed thousands of troops on Friday to secure the pope's
visit in which he is expected to stress unity among the different Christian
churches in the Middle East and peace between Christians and Muslims.
Religious pluralism and the welfare of Christians in the region were
likely to top the agenda of his tour, but the pontiff was also expected to call
for an end to the conflict in Syria and a halt to arming the two sides.
He will call on Lebanon's Christians to unite, divided as they are not
only toward the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but also on a
political vision for their own country.
But the Vatican has said the pontiff will avoid intervening politically
in his comments on Syria or tell Christians where their alliances should lie.
Benedict, 85, faces a packed schedule in the majority-Muslim country,
which will take him from the presidential palace in the Mediterranean seaside
capital of Beirut to important Christian towns in the nearby mountains.
He will reach out to the 13 million or more Catholics in Lebanon and the
Middle East, asking them to work for peace and democracy alongside moderate
Islamists, in a period fraught with fears of a rise of fundamentalism.
Those concerns are particularly poignant as the region is rocked by
deadly violence over a video mocking Islam that has cost the lives of the US
ambassador in Libya including four other Americans.
Around 200 protesters took to the streets of the northern Lebanese city
of Tripoli on Thursday to express outrage over video purportedly made in the US.
Sectarian tension
The pope hopes to advance the church's sometimes difficult relationship
with Islam. While in Lebanon, he will meet not only local Christian leaders but
Muslim ones as well.
His choice of Lebanon for his Middle East trip is not a casual one: the
multi-confessional society - in which top political posts are split among
religious groups - was hailed by pope John Paul II as a model for the region.
As the balance of power continues to shift in the region and with
Christian minorities increasingly agitated, the emphasis will be on religious
pluralism.
Benedict will weigh his words carefully to avoid politically charged
comments that could increase religious tensions - and is expected to speak out
in favour of a secularism that guarantees cultural and religious freedom.
He will also tackle concern over the exodus of Christians from the region
during a presentation of results from the 2010 synod with Middle East bishops.
He has already received a request to recognise the Palestinian state and
the important role of the Palestinian cause in the Arab world.
And Syriac Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan has said he hopes the
pope will also use the trip to call for negotiations in Syria.
Here too Benedict must tread carefully. The political class in Lebanon -
including people from the Maronite church, Lebanon's largest - are divided,
some supporting the Assad regime and others backing the rebels.
On Thursday, Maronite Patriarch Bishara Rai said "the pope will
definitely call for an end to the spiral of violence and to hatred, which are
pointless, and for those who finance and arm both sides in the conflict to stop
doing so".
Tight security
In the run-up to the pope's visit, Lebanese security forces are on high
alert, and Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said this week that it "will be one
of the most successful visits in the history of modern Lebanon".
The pontiff will arrive at Beirut's Rafiq Hariri International Airport
early in the afternoon to a 21-gun salute. After his welcoming ceremony, he
will travel to Harissa in the mountains northeast of the capital, where he will
be staying.
While there, he will sign the final report on a synod of bishops he
convened two years ago to study the future of Christians in the Middle East.
On Saturday, he will meet President Michel Sleiman, a Maronite, and Prime
Minister Najib Mikati, a Sunni, as well as Muslim religious leaders and the
diplomatic corps in Beirut.
He also expected to meet eastern patriarchs and bishops in Bzommar over
lunch, to be followed by a meeting with Lebanese youth at the Maronite
patriarchate in Bkerke, another village in the same area.
On Sunday, he will celebrate an open-air mass at the Beirut City Centre
Waterfront and unveil the conclusions of the 2010 synod of bishops. He returns
to Rome on Sunday evening.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
