Visiting Pope Leo XIV urged the Lebanese people on Sunday to embrace reconciliation and remain in their crisis-hit country, while calling on its leaders to put themselves fully at the service of their citizens.

The pope, bearing what he described as a message of peace, had previously visited Turkey, where he kicked off his first overseas tour since being elected leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics in May.

Long hailed as a model of coexistence, multi-confessional Lebanon is nonetheless plagued by sectarian and political rifts, and has seen waves of emigration.

Since 2019 it has been ravaged by successive crises, from an economic collapse widely blamed on official mismanagement and corruption, to a devastating Beirut port blast in 2020, to the recent war between militant group Hezbollah and Israel -- which many Lebanese fear could return.

Leo told officials, diplomats and civil society representatives in a speech at the presidential palace that "there are times when it is easier to flee, or simply more convenient to move elsewhere. It takes real courage and foresight to stay or return to one's own country."

He urged Lebanese people to take up the........

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