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POPE-LEBANON Nov-17-2008 (300 words) xxxi
Pope urges Lebanese to renew efforts for peaceful coexistence
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Lebanese people's love for their country must translate into a renewed commitment to ensuring that Lebanon is a place where Christians, Muslims and Druze live and work together, Pope Benedict XVI said.
Lebanon's history of religious and cultural diversity "is a treasure entrusted to all Lebanese. It is a gift that must be preserved and made fruitful for the good of the entire nation," the pope told Georges Chakib El Khoury, Lebanon's new ambassador to the Vatican.
Welcoming the new ambassador Nov. 17, the pope also said the international community must maintain its commitment to helping Lebanon re-establish peaceful coexistence rather than being "a field of confrontation for regional or international conflicts."
"Lebanon should be like a laboratory for finding effective solutions to the conflicts that have afflicted the Middle East for so long," the pope said.
With the election of a new president, the formation of a government of national unity and the passage of a new electoral law, combined with the "national dialogue" process set to hold its third session in December, the pope said he hoped Lebanese leaders would be able to identify the key challenges the country faces and agree on methods for resolving them.
"I hope that by putting aside individual interests and healing the wounds of the past, all will agree on dialogue and reconciliation as the way to help the country progress with stability," the pope said.
"The basic attitude that should guide everyone in this commitment to the common good remains unchanged: that each component of the Lebanese people would feel truly at home in Lebanon and would see that its concerns are being taken into account while recognizing the rights of the other," he said.
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