Celebrating 50 years

The National Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon, 2759 N. Lipkey Road, North Jackson, is celebrating its 50th anniversary and the elevation of the shrine as a minor basilica by Pope Francis. The shrine becomes just the second Maronite Catholic basilica in the world, the other being the original shrine in Lebanon. The observance began Aug. 15, recalling that date in 1964 when ground was broken for the shrine. The celebration will conclude Aug. 15, 2015, on the golden anniversary of the dedication. Aug. 15 is significant because that is the observance of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven. The shrine is a Maronite Catholic Church under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Maronite Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon in St. Louis, Mo.

Celebration details: A Divine Liturgy will be celebrated at 5 p.m. today followed by a banquet, by reservation, to be attended by some 400 people. The shrine will be consecrated by the Most Rev. A. Elias Zaidan, Bishop of the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles. Also attending will be Bishop Gregory Mansour, Eparchy of St. Maron, Brooklyn; and Bishop Robert Shaheen, bishop emeritus. Assisting chorbishops, monsignori, priests, deacons and subdeacons also will attend.

In the beginning: In June 1960, Maronite priests of America met in Washington and proposed a Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon. When the Rev. Peter Eid was returning to the Mahoning Valley, he suggested that the Maronites in the Youngstown and surrounding areas would buy land and build a shrine. He saw a sign for 75 acres for sale on Lipkey Road, but the owner did not want to sell to a Catholic. Father Eid enlisted fellow priests to pray a novena for the intention of the land, which the owner ended up selling to him. The shrine gave 10 acres and existing farmhouse to the Antonine Sisters, who established an adult day care.

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In 2007, Peter Kassig, a nineteen-year-old from Indianapolis, Indiana, left the Army and embarked on a period of deep searching. His deployment to Iraq, as a member of an élite Ranger battalion, earlier that year, had been cut short for medical reasons, but it had left a lasting impression: he knew that waging war was not for him.

Kassig returned to Indiana, where, in the course of the next five years, he tried college and marriage, but neither took. During a break from classes in the spring of 2012, he travelled to Lebanon, and, as the crisis in Syria swelled, he decided to stay in the region. On October 1, 2013, Kassig was captured by Syrian militants, and he has been held by them since. Islamic State, also known as ISIS, which has been steadily executing Western hostages, now says that he will be the next to be killed.

Kassig was one of many itinerant idealists in Beirut, Syrian and foreign alike, who were drawn to the uprising: students gave up their classes to stand in front of tanks, doctors left lucrative practices to treat patients on the front lines, Western journalists wanted to share the war with the world. What set Kassig apart from many of them was his intense drive and restless engagement with his surroundings. While friends drank beer at bars on Gemmayze Street, Kassig grabbed camping gear and set out for the mountains. He visited the Palestinian refugee camps that dot the landscape around Beirut, thinking about ways to bring solar power and other utilities into those neglected communities. Later, as the war in Syria encroached on Lebanon’s borders, sending desperate and wounded civilians into rural communities in the north, Kassig travelled to Tripoli to volunteer his services at a clinic, suturing wounds and comforting the dying. (He had received medical training in the Army and had studied to be an E.M.T. in Indiana.)

 

By Marwan Muasher and Kim Ghattas

Global debate in recent weeks has centred on United States President Barack Obama’s initiative to prevent the advance of the Islamic State. But another force has emerged as an unlikely rampart against the barbaric and delusional leaders of the self-proclaimed caliphate: Lebanese pluralism. Indeed, despite the shortcomings of its political system, Lebanon can provide a template for managing cultural diversity and rejecting radicalism in an unstable and fragmented setting.

In August, the Lebanese army showed considerable fortitude as it fought Islamic State militants in the village of Arsal, near the border with Syria. Though the army has sustained heavy losses — including two soldiers that were beheaded — it has managed to compel the militants, who were operating inside a Syrian refugee camp, largely to withdraw. And it continues to fight when the need arises. International aid is now flowing towards the army, with Saudi Arabia alone pledging more than US$3 billion (S$3.83 billion).

But the international community should move beyond military aid to support Lebanon’s real strengths: Its moderate, pluralist and vibrant society. After all, that is what has enabled the country, against all odds, to avoid all-out conflict, making it a beacon — however faint — of hope in a crisis-ravaged region.

HOW THE LEBANESE RALLIED TOGETHER

Lebanon’s resilience has confounded expectations, given its lack of a shared national identity — a result of deep social divisions that resemble, to some extent, those besetting Iraq — and notoriously weak state institutions. In fact, Lebanon’s political system has been paralysed by disagreements over Syria’s civil war, the consequences of which have been pouring over the Lebanese border. The country has not had a President since May, the Parliament is not functioning and the Cabinet is practically powerless.

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