Bishop Khairallah on Synod: ‘I carry from Lebanon a message of forgiveness’

By Bishop Mounir Khairallah, Maronite Catholic Bishop of Batrun

I come from a country that has been engulfed in fire and blood for fifty years now. In 1975, the war in Lebanon began under the pretext of a religious and confessional war, mainly between Muslims and Christians.

Fifty years later, they have failed to understand that it is not entirely a war of confession or religion. It is a war that has been imposed upon us, in Lebanon, a “country-message,” as Saint John Paul II always said; a country-message of conviviality, freedom, democracy, and life in respect of diversity. Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, recognizes this.

Lebanon is a message of peace and should remain a message of peace. It is the only country in the Middle East where Christians, Muslims, and Jews can live together, respecting their diversities, in a nation that is a “model nation,” as Pope Benedict XVI said.

Coming here, in this situation, to speak at the Synod might seem strange. Speaking also about forgiveness, which Pope Francis has taken as a sign for this Second Session, would be even more complex. Yes, I come here to speak about forgiveness and reconciliation, while my country and my people suffer and experience the consequences of wars, conflicts, violence, vengeance, and hatred.

We Lebanese always want to condemn hatred, vengeance, and violence. We want to build peace. We are capable of doing so. If Pope Francis has chosen forgiveness, for us and for me, it is a great message to give.

Talking about forgiveness, when bombings strike all of Lebanon, would it be impossible? No. In all this, the population of Lebanon rejects, as always, the language of hatred and vengeance.

I have personally experienced forgiveness. When I was five years old, someone came to our house and brutally murdered my parents. I have a aunt who is a nun in the Lebanese Maronite order. She came to our house to take us four children—the eldest was six years old, the youngest two—and took us to her monastery. In the church, she invited us to kneel and pray—to pray to God for mercy, for love. She told us: “Let us not pray so much for your parents; they are martyrs before God. Let us instead pray for those who killed them and seek to forgive throughout your lives. Thus you will be the children of your Father, who is in Heaven.”

“If you love those who love you,” says Jesus, “what merit do you have? Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Then you will be disciples of Christ and children of your Father.” We have carried this in our hearts, us, four children. And the Lord has never abandoned us; He has taken us, accompanied us, to live this forgiveness.

After my studies here in Rome as a seminarian, I returned for ordination. At 24 years old, I chose the anniversary of the murder of my parents, which was the eve of the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross—a great feast for us Eastern Churches—to just say that “a grain of wheat if it falls to the ground and does not die, it does not bear fruit.”

And we are, I said, the fruit of this grain of wheat willed by God. Yes, it is the will of God that our parents accepted and that we have lived. And I said, ‘I renew my promise of forgiveness, to forgive all those who harm us.’

Then, a few months later, I was speaking in a retreat to our young people there, in Lebanon, who were in the early years of war in 1977-78. I came to talk about the sacrament of reconciliation and forgiveness.

I felt that they did not understand me: they were all armed to wage war against our enemies. After 4 hours of speaking, I felt that the message was not getting through. Then I said: ‘I shall give you my personal testimony.’ And I told those young Lebanese what I had experienced and that I renewed with forgiveness and reconciliation.

After a period of silence, a young man stood up and dared to ask me: “Father, I suppose you have forgiven, but imagine that now you are a priest in confession and this man comes to you, stands before you, confesses, and asks you for forgiveness. What would you do?” — the answer was not easy.

Then I said: ‘Thank you for the question, because now I have understood what it means to forgive. Because it is true that I have forgiven, but now I see that I have forgiven from afar; I had never seen this person. Today they come and stand there, in front of me… I am also human; I have my feelings, but finally yes, I would give them absolution and forgiveness. But I say to you, young Lebanese, that I have understood why forgiveness is so difficult, but it is not impossible. I understand you, but it is possible to live it if we want to be disciples of Christ, in the land of Christ. On the Cross, Jesus forgave; we are capable of forgiving. And I tell you more: all those who wage war against us, whom we consider enemies—Israelis, Palestinians, Syrians, of all nationalities—these are not enemies, why? Because those who foment war have no identity, no confession, no religion; but the others, the peoples, want peace, want to live in peace on the land of the peace of Jesus Christ, King of Peace.’

Therefore, even today, despite all that happens—50 years of blind, savage war—despite everything, we as peoples of all cultures of all confessions, want peace; we are capable of building peace.

Let us put aside our politicians, ours and those of the world, the great powers: they make their interests at our expense. But we, as a people, do not want all this; we reject it.

The day will come when we will have the opportunity to pass our message, to say our word to the whole world: Enough! Enough with this vengeance, with this hatred, with these wars, enough!

Let us build peace, at least for our children, for future generations who have the right to live in peace. This is what I understood from Pope Francis’s message when he called to make, to live together synodality—which is still a practice in our Eastern Churches—he asked the entire Church to begin to live forgiveness, reconciliation, and personal and community conversion in order to walk together towards the construction of the kingdom of God. Yes, we want to do it; we can do it!

I think that the greatest decision to be made is that the Church, through this Synod, be a messenger of living together, that is, in listening to the other, respecting each other, dialoguing with each other, respecting them, and then freeing ourselves from the fear of the other.

We must free ourselves from this fear, because it dwells within us. I think this would be a first step as a great recommendation of this Synod for humanity.