BEIRUT, 06 April 2022, (TON): Pope Francis will visit Lebanon in June in a long-awaited trip that comes amid a spiraling financial and political crisis.

The pope, who has received Lebanon’s president and prime minister at the Vatican in the past few months, had promised to visit the country and repeatedly expressed concern over its economic meltdown.

President Michel Aoun’s spokesman said “the Lebanese people have been waiting for this visit for some time to express gratitude to his holiness for his support.”

Francis’s visit to Lebanon will be the third by an incumbent pope since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. Visiting in 2012, Pope Benedict XVI appealed for peace, months after the start of the civil war in Syria. Pope John Paul II visited in 1997, and drew one of the largest crowds Lebanon had ever seen.

One social media user drew a parallel between that visit and the forthcoming one.

He wrote “Just as Pope John Paul II was a hope for Lebanon, Pope Francis too will definitely be a new hope.”

The pope’s visit will follow Lebanese parliamentary elections on May 15, campaigning for which began in earnest on Tuesday after the publication of the final list of candidates.