Vatican City / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Meeting with Syriac Orthodox leaders on Friday, Pope Francis decried the continuing martyrdom of Middle East Christians, and gave special mention to two Christian bishops kidnapped in Syria two years ago.

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of unity in the Church and the instrument of the building up of the kingdom of God, which is a kingdom of peace and of justice,” the Pope said June 19.“Let us ask the Lord, too, for the grace of always being ready to forgive and of being workers of reconciliation and peace. This is what animates the witness of the martyrs.”

The Roman Pontiff encouraged prayers for the victims of violence in the Middle East. He particularly mentioned Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan Gregorios Ibrahim and Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Paul Yazigi, two archbishops of Aleppo, Syria who were kidnapped together in 2013.

The Pope’s comments came during a meeting with Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II of Antioch, who was accompanied by a delegation of his Church.

Jesse Rosenfeld

Lebanon used to be a magnet for regional and global powers to fight out their proxy wars, reducing the country to rubble and scarring its people. Now the coastal capital of Beirut is a business hub. Its cafes and bars bustle while, politically, the city is a soap box for a war of words about battles that are fought elsewhere.

From conflicts in Yemen to Syria, major players make their positions known through their local Lebanese allies. Speeches by Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah that blame Saudi Arabia for aggression in Yemen routinely face retorts by former prime minister Saad Hariri citing Iranian backing of the Houthis as the cause of the violence.

Yet the miracle of Lebanon is that despite the spillover from the Syrian civil war, it has continued to stay above the fray. There is mutual interest in the country’s capital being a place for back channel negotiations and for business from all sides to make a profit. The weak central government, unable to decide on a president for the past year, levels the playing field and the strong factional divides give a voice to competing powers.

Raphael Satter, Maggie Michael, Associated Press

At the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, diplomats talked about airing the grievances of disenchanted local youth using Facebook and Twitter. At the embassy in Khartoum, they reported anxiously on Iran’s military aid to Sudan.

Meanwhile, the Saudi mission in Geneva got stuck dealing with a multi-million dollar limo bill racked up by a Saudi princess and her entourage.

The incidents are mentioned in diplomatic documents published Friday by WikiLeaks, only the first batch of what the transparency group says will be a much larger release. But they’ve already provided an unusual level of insight into day-to-day Saudi diplomacy — giving a snapshot of the lavish spending habits of senior royals and the political intrigue percolating across the Middle East.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) – The 10-foot high statue overlooks the town of Maaloula, one of the world’s oldest Christian communities. A video where a statue of the Virgin Mary was demolished by a Muslim sheik went viral over the Internet in 2013, raising concern among Christian communities.

The former statue stood tall on the cliff until the war between the loyal forces of President Bashar Assad and the Nusra Front, an affiliate of Al Qaeda in Syria. With the battling forces finally out of the community, the new statue promises to bring peace to the people.

Now, the community, whose residents speak Aramaic, are trying to restore the religious artifacts previously taken down and destroyed, including some images of Jesus Christ.

  Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi is scheduled to travel to the Iraqi Kurdish region of Erbil on Friday to follow up the situation of Christians who have been displaced as a result of the Islamic State group’s onslaught. Al-Joumhouria daily said that al-Rahi will be accompanied during the one-day visit by the Archbishop of Milan, […]

  BEIRUT: A plume of black smoke covered a Sin al-Fil neighborhood Thursday after a fire erupted in one of the area’s local markets, a security source told The Daily Star. The fire erupted in Souq al-Khoudar, facing Souk al-Ahad- a giant, open-air weekly flea market is located under the flyover by Jisr al-Wati. Civil […]

  BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Health Ministry ordered a dairy factory shut Thursday after seizing large quantities of expired dairy products in the Bekaa Valley Thursday. Health Ministry inspectors seized 25 tons of expired dairy products from the Al-Marahi Al-Thahabiya factory in the town of Zahle, according to a statement released by the ministry’s press office. Thursday’s […]

  Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi stressed on Monday that it was unacceptable for the presidential vacuum to last more than a year, hoping for a divine “interference” in the country’s blood-stained history. “We continue to pray for the election of a president, for stability and for a comprehensive reconciliation,” al-Rahi said at the opening of […]

  SIDON, Lebanon: The Internal Security Forces arrested 13 wanted criminals in the southern city of Sidon Tuesday, for the possession and sale of illegal narcotics, a security source told The Daily Star. Judicial police, in addition to members of the Central Narcotics Bureau and the ISF’s Information Branch, carried out raids in Sidon’s old […]

  BEIRUT: U.S Ambassador David Hale said Monday the Lebanese Army and state security bodies were the only legitimate protectors of Lebanon against extremism. Speaking during a ceremony to mark America’s 239th year of independence, Hale urged the Lebanese to remain committed to their state institutions, “which are so much stronger than the false ideology […]