Vatican Confirms Pope’s Sept. Visit as Presidency Hails Trip

Pope Benedict XVI will visit Lebanon from September 14 to 16, the Vatican announced on Sunday.

The trip will mark the second to the region for Benedict, who visited Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories in 2009.

He will hand over an apostolic exhortation to bishops from throughout the Middle East, the Vatican said.

This 24th foreign trip undertaken by the pope, who will be 85, comes against a background of violence in neighboring Syria and at a time when Christian communities in the Middle East feel increasingly threatened by militant Islamism.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fuad Twal, warned on Sunday in his Easter homily of the plight of Christians in the region, saying that the world was now "less concerned" about the minority.

"I wish all of you a beautiful and holy feast of the Resurrection, in the knowledge that the events unfolding in the Middle East threaten our region, our people and our Christians, that add a somberness to this Easter joy," he said.

Twal, the most senior Roman Catholic in the Middle East, evoked the "fear" of Christians in the region in the traditional address, delivered at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City.

Gregory III Lahham, the head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, who last month met with pontiff said at the time he would "come to support Christians so that they are united."

Benedict will also bring a message of "peace in the Middle East," he added.

President Michel Suleiman’s media office published a statement on Sunday hailing the pope’s visit, saying that it will help assert the “deep historic ties” between Lebanon and the Vatican.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati invited the pontiff to visit in November last year during a visit to the Vatican.

Some 35 percent of Lebanon's population are Christians.

Patriarch Gregory, who is headquartered in Damascus, heads the second-largest Catholic community in the Middle East, with some 700,000 followers in Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Sudan and Syria.