Pope Leo XIV comforts 13 priests from southern Lebanon with a surprise video call from Rome

BEIRUT (AP) — Pope Leo XIV surprised 13 priests from southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, by joining a video call from Rome on Wednesday, telling them they were in his prayers and that he hoped peace would soon prevail along the tense frontier.

The Lebanese Catholic and Maronite priests were asked to attend an online morning meeting with the Vatican’s ambassador to Lebanon, Archbishop Paolo Borgia. Once online, Borgia told them Leo was also present and would like to speak with them.

The 13 holy men, from southern villages and towns, including Rmeish, Ain Ebel, Debel and Marjayoun, were pleasantly surprised.

“(The pope) gave us peace and his blessings,” said Father Najib al-Amil, the parish priest of Rmeish, who attended the online meeting. “His words were reassuring, particularly as we live in constant worry over here,” Al-Amil told The Associated Press.

Christian villages along the border with Israel have been mostly spared intense Israeli bombardment that has caused wide destruction in other parts of predominantly Shiite southern Lebanon. However, the situation remains tense in southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire that went into effect on April 17, as Israel and the militant Hezbollah group have continued their attacks despite the truce.

The fighting had been limited to the south, but on Wednesday, Israel launched its first post-ceasefire strike in Beirut, destroying the upper stories of an apartment building in the southern suburbs of the capital. Israeli officials said the strike, which came without warning, targeted a commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force. Hezbollah did not immediately comment.

Al-Amil said the pope spoke in French with the priests during the video call that lasted about a minute and urged them to stay in their hometowns.

“Pray with me so that peace prevails. God willing, peace is near,” al-Amil quoted the pope as saying.

The Vatican spokesman didn’t immediately respond when asked for details of the call. The Vatican did say that Leo had a meeting on the agenda Wednesday with the Holy See’s ambassador to Lebanon, though no details are ever released of such audiences.

When Pope Francis used to call the parish priest in Gaza, as he was known to do every evening during Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian enclave, the Vatican always declined to provide details, describing the initiative as a personal pastoral act by the pope.

A few days before Wednesday's call, the Israeli military demolished a Catholic convent in the border village of Yaroun, according to officials.

The military says it does not intentionally target religious institutions. However, in a statement Saturday, it stated it damaged a house without religious signs while destroying Hezbollah infrastructure in Yaroun, without realizing it was a church building.

The Israeli military said the building in Yaroun was part of a compound that Hezbollah militants had used in the past to fire rockets toward Israel, and it released photographs of an intact building at the site.

Two local officials from Yaroun and a nun who spent time at the convent in recent years told the AP that the photos posted in the Israel statement were of another building next to the convent that housed a clinic and archbishopric, and that the Israeli military had bulldozed the convent.

Lebanon's state news agency also reported that the convent was demolished.

The convent demolition also came days after images of an Israeli soldier wielding an ax against a fallen statue of Jesus on the cross in the village of Debel sparked widespread condemnation.

In another incident, a photo that went viral on social media showed an Israeli soldier in Lebanon placing a cigarette in the mouth of a statue of the Virgin Mary. Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani in a statement on X Wednesday said the military “views the incident with utmost severity and emphasizes that the conduct of the soldier completely deviates from the values expected of its personnel.”

Christians make up around a third of Lebanon’s 5 million people, giving the small nation on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean the largest percentage of Christians in the Middle East.

In November, Leo flew to Lebanon from Turkey on his first trip abroad since being elected in May last year. The pope has recently revealed that he carries a photo of a young Lebanese Muslim boy who had held up a sign welcoming Leo to Lebanon. The boy was killed during Israel's recent war with Hezbollah.

Maronite Catholics are the largest Christian group in Lebanon and the Lebanese president is always a Maronite, according to the country’s power-sharing agreement.

The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, two days after the United States and Israel launched a war on its main backer, Iran.

Israel has since carried out hundreds of airstrikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, capturing dozens of towns and villages along the border.

Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

Rescue workers search through the rubble of a damaged building for survivors following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Smoke rises from the rubble of a heavily damaged building following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Rescue workers search through the rubble of a damaged building for survivors following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

FILE - Pope Leo XIV waves to the crowd as he arrives to celebrate a Holy Mass at Beirut waterfront, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) — The FBI searched the Virginia state Senate leader's hometown office and her neighboring cannabis shop Wednesday, bringing into public view what was described as a yearslong corruption investigation.

The searches at Democratic Sen. L. Louise Lucas' office and cannabis business are part of what two people familiar with the matter called a corruption inquiry. One of the people said the investigation was opened during Democratic former President Joe Biden's administration. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation.

While the probe apparently has spanned administrations of different political parties, Democrats viewed it against a backdrop of recent, politically charged inquiries during President Donald Trump’s tenure. Lucas was a prominent voice in Virginia's recent redistricting effort, a Democrat-led initiative to counter Republican redrawing pushed by Trump.

The FBI said only that it was conducting a court-authorized search in Portsmouth. Such searches require approval from a judge and for investigators to assert that they believe they have identified probable cause of a crime.

A message seeking comment was left on a cellphone for Lucas, who has been a state senator for 34 years. Her daughter Lisa Lucas Burke told WAVY-TV that the family had no idea what the federal action was about.

“We're trying to figure it out. That's all I know,” she said.

Besides the search at Lucas' office, which houses her disabilities services business and is her political base in Portsmouth, agents in FBI T-shirts also went into the nearby cannabis store, which she opened in 2021. Several entrances to the Cannabis Outlet's parking lot were blocked by unmarked vehicles with flashing blue lights, as was an entrance to the politician's office.

By evening, agents were carrying boxes and bags out of the shop's back door.

Lucas, a prominent backer of legalizing marijuana, has said the store sells legal hemp and CBD products. It has drawn scrutiny from local media amid allegations that some products were mislabeled.

Virginia has legalized pot possession, but retail sales of recreational marijuana remain illegal in the state.

A woman who identified herself as Lucas’ granddaughter, Nicole Bremby, came by after agents left to check on the Cannabis Outlet. She declined to discuss the raids.

“I’ve had better days,” she said. “It’s all good. Everyone is home.”

State House Speaker Don Scott said he was deeply concerned by the FBI search.

“Right now, there is far more theatrics and speculation than actual information available to the public,” Scott, a Democrat, said in a statement, adding that more facts were needed “before anyone rushes to political conclusions.”

Gov. Abigail Spanberger declined to comment.

Other Virginia Democrats were quick to note that the search comes as the FBI and Justice Department have opened a spate of investigations into perceived adversaries of Trump.

Last week the Justice Department charged former FBI Director James Comey with making a threatening Instagram post against Trump, an accusation that Comey — who for nearly a decade has drawn the president’s ire — has denied. A court dismissed federal prosecutors' earlier case accusing Comey of lying to Congress.

A separate mortgage fraud case, also ultimately dismissed by a court, targeted Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a major civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his business. Both she and Comey, a longtime Republican who split from the party in the past decade, denied the charges and said the prosecutions were vindictive.

Such cases “have undermined public confidence” in federal prosecutors in Virginia, Democratic state Attorney General Jay Jones said in a statement.

The FBI and Justice Department have also provoked concerns among Democrats about ongoing election-related investigations, including the seizure by agents of ballots and other information from Fulton County, Georgia.

Lucas has been a vocal leader of Virginia's redistricting effort, which voters approved last month. A sign urging people to “vote yes” to “stop the MAGA power grab” still hung Wednesday on a fence separating her office's parking lot from that of the cannabis shop.

Amid a national, state-by-state partisan redistricting fight kicked off by Trump’s desire to aid his fellow Republicans, Virginia voters OK'd a Democrat-backed constitutional amendment authorizing new U.S. House districts. The plan could help the party win up to four additional seats.

“We are not going to let anyone tilt the system without a response,” Lucas said after the vote. Trump, meanwhile, denounced the results.

The state Supreme Court let the referendum proceed but has yet to rule on whether the effort is legal. The court is considering an appeal of a lower court judge’s ruling that the amendment is invalid because lawmakers violated procedural requirements.

Voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade, after each census. But Trump last year urged Texas Republicans to redraw House districts to give the GOP an edge in the midterms. California Democrats reciprocated, and redistricting efforts soon cascaded across states.

Lucas, 82, has been a figure in Virginia politics since the 1980s, when she became the first Black woman elected to a city council seat in her native Portsmouth. She now is the first woman and first African American to serve as the Senate’s president pro tempore.

Earlier in life she was the Norfolk Naval Shipyard's first female shipfitter, according to her biography in the state library. The job entails making, installing and repairing sometimes enormous metal assemblies for vessels.

In recent years she has been the CEO of a Portsmouth business that runs residences, day programs and transportation for intellectually disabled adults.

Associated Press journalists Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky, Jake Offenhartz in New York, Claudia Lauder in Philadelphia and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed.

FBI personnel enter a building in Portsmouth, Va., Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/John Clark)

FBI personnel enter a building in Portsmouth, Va., Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/John Clark)

FBI personnel enter a building in Portsmouth, Va., Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/John Clark)

FBI personnel enter a building in Portsmouth, Va., Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/John Clark)

FILE - Virginia Senate President pro tempore Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, listens to debate on the Senate floor, Feb. 17, 2026, in Richmond, Va. (AP Photo/Ryan M. Kelly, File)