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.