BEIRUT (OSV News): Lebanon’s Catholic clergy celebrated a commemorative Mass and held a vigil in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, remembering those who perished five years earlier, on 4 August 2020, in the catastrophic Beirut port explosion.
“Our beloved martyrs and victims of the 4 August 2020 explosion, you remain in us, and we remain faithful. We will not forget, we will not tire, and we will not remain silent, for your sake, for our sake, and for the sake of our homeland, Lebanon,” Lebanese Maronite Archbishop Paul Abdel Sater of Beirut, said during a solemn memorial Mass at St. George’s Cathedral in downtown Beirut.
“The blood of the innocent cries out to God for justice and he hears it,” Archbishop Sater added.
Pope Leo XIV also remembered the victims and comforted their loved ones in a special message, saying that Christ’s tears “are joined with ours in the face of loss and suffering. Death does not and will never have the last word,” he said, conveying his affection and that of the whole Church to the Lebanese people.
The blood of the innocent cries out to God for justice and he hears it
Archbishop Paul Abdel Sater
The apostolic nuncio to Lebanon, Archbishop Paolo Borgia, shared the pope’s message during an evening prayer vigil on August 3 that also saw testimonies and the planting of 75 trees bearing the names of the blast victims.
“The families of the victims need justice and truth about what happened,” Archbishop Borgia said. “These are deaths that still have no explanation, and this weighs heavily on the whole country.”
The 2020 explosion, one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in modern history, killed more than 200 people, injured some 7,000 others and displaced more than 300,000.
Bechara Cardinal Rai, patriarch of the Maronite Catholic Church, called the horrific blast a “crime against humanity” and has led vigorous calls for truth and justice over subsequent years for the blast victims and their families from Lebanon’s authorities.
The tragedy has remained a national trauma, as closure has been elusive for people frustrated by years of stalled investigations and unresolved questions of accountability.
