Two Lebanese friars, Léonard Melki and Thomas Saleh, will be beatified on June 4, 2022.

​"Holiness is the most attractive face of the Church" (Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate, 9).

In the midst of the darkness that our world has been enduring for more than two years, and in the face of an uncertain future, the Lord generously offers us two new blesseds: Thomas and Leonard of Baabdat. They come from a biblical land - certainly - but also from a region of the world that has known only war and persecution. Lebanon, a small country that has already given to the Order Blessed Abouna Yacoub (Jacob of Ghazir), Apostle of the Cross, will have the joy of celebrating the beatification of two more Capuchins who were both missionaries and martyrs, this June 4, 2022 in Beirut...

My dear brothers, the two blesseds, Thomas and Leonard, who died in odium fidei (in hatred of the faith), during the worst genocide of the twentieth century, are a wonderful example of charity and fraternal self-denial. Amid this persecution, which claimed two million victims, the first sacrificed himself for an Armenian priest; the second, for a brother."
An excerpt from the letter by Br. Roberto Genuin, General Minister of the Capuchin Friars Minor.

Click HERE to learn more about these new blesseds.