Pope calls for 'truth and justice' for 2020 Beirut port explosion

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Four years after the catastrophic explosion that rocked the port of Beirut, killing some 220 people and injuring more than 6,000 others, Pope Francis joined Lebanese families in calling for an investigation into the deadly blast.

Meeting with the family members of victims of the Aug. 4, 2020, explosion, the pope said he supported their call for “truth and justice which have not yet arrived.”

“All of us know that the issues are complex and difficult, and that opposing powers and interests make their influence felt. Yet truth and justice must prevail over all else,” he said Aug. 26.

Pope Francis poses for a photo with family members of victims of the 2020 Beirut port explosion during a meeting at the Vatican, Aug. 26. 2024. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

The explosion occurred when approximately 2,750 of tons of ammonium nitrate, a combustible chemical typically used as an agricultural fertilizer, ignited in a Beirut port warehouse, razing large swaths of the Lebanese capital. An investigation launched following the blast has largely been scuttled by government officials.

“Four years have gone by; the Lebanese people, and you above all, have a right to words and actions that manifest responsibility and transparency,” Pope Francis told the families of the blast victims.

Meeting the families one day after Israel and Hezbollah exchanged airstrikes across the Israel-Lebanon border, the pope expressed his sadness at Lebanon’s entanglement in the war in the Middle East.

“With you, I also feel the pain of witnessing once again the great number of innocent people daily losing their lives because of the war in your region, in Palestine and Israel, for which Lebanon is paying a price,” he said. “Every war leaves our world worse than it was before. War is always a failure, a failure of politics, a failure of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil.”

Pope Francis prayed for peace in the Middle East and asked that Lebanon remain “a project for peace.”

Lebanon’s “vocation,” he said, “is to be a land where diverse communities live together in concord, setting the common good above individual advantage, a land where different religions and confessions encounter one another in a spirit of fraternity.”

Pope Francis has often pointed to Lebanon as an example of religious pluralism. According to an independent study cited the U.S. State Department, 67.8 percent of Lebanon’s population is Muslim, with near equal parts Sunni and Shiite, and 32.4 percent is Christian, with Maronite Catholics as the largest group of Christians followed by Greek Orthodox.

By convention, some roles in the government are reserved to members of a specific religious group: typically, the presidency is reserved for a Maronite Christian, the prime minister’s office for a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament for a Shiite Muslim.

The pope thanked members of the church in Lebanon who remain close to the Lebanese people. “You are not alone, and we will never abandon you,” he told the blast victims’ families, “but (we) express our solidarity with you through prayer and concrete works of charity.”