Mourners gather in Qlayaa to farewell Father Pierre El-Rahi, a Maronite priest killed in Israeli strikes after staying with his community until the end.
Newsroom (12/03/2026 Gaudium Press) Thousands of mourners converged on the border town of Qlayaa, in southern Lebanon, on Wednesday to bid farewell to Father Pierre El-Rahi, a Maronite priest who died after being wounded in an Israeli airstrike during recent cross-border attacks.
The funeral, held at St. George’s Church, became a powerful display of collective mourning and resilience. Local families, displaced residents seeking refuge, clergy from across Lebanon, and civil authorities filled the narrow streets and courtyards surrounding the parish. Many wept openly, describing their sorrow as if they were “burying their own father,” according to The Eastern Church.
Father El-Rahi, parish priest of St. George’s in Qlayaa—a Christian-majority town of about 8,000 inhabitants—had long been a cornerstone of community life. His ministry in the Maronite Church, rooted in communion with the Vatican and the patriarchate in Bkerke, made the small border parish a place of steadfast faith amid instability.
A Priest Who Chose to Stay
As violence intensified along the southern border, Father El-Rahi had made a clear and unwavering choice: to remain with his people. While many residents fled the bombardment, he stayed behind, providing comfort and prayer under shellfire.
In one of his final televised interviews, cited by the National Catholic Register, he vowed to stay “until death.” His words, broadcast days before his fatal injury, have since taken on the weight of spiritual testament.
During his final address to the congregation on March 8, reported by France24, Father El-Rahi preached a message of peace in the shadow of war. “We are forced to stay despite the danger, when we defend our land, and we do so peacefully,” he said from the church entrance. “None of us carry weapons. We all bring peace, kindness, and love.”
Hours later, on March 9, he was struck by shrapnel from a missile while aiding survivors of another attack in Qlayaa. He was rushed to Marjayoun hospital, where he succumbed to his wounds the same day.
A Shepherd to the End
According to María Lozano, project director for Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Father El-Rahi died while tending to others. “He went to see how he could help the wounded… and that’s when a second missile hit and killed him,” Lozano told EWTN News.
“He was a man entirely dedicated to his people,” she continued, emphasizing that Christian communities in southern Lebanon had chosen to remain despite the warfare, insisting: “We are a Christian population. We have nothing to do with this war.”
French journalist Nathalie Duplan, a veteran Middle East correspondent, described him as “the father of the community.” “He used to say something incredible,” Duplan recalled. “‘Yes, there is death, but I am not afraid, because after death there is resurrection.’”
Legacy of the “True Shepherd”
Born in 1975 in Dibeh, northern Lebanon, Father El-Rahi was ordained in the early 2000s and later took up his post in Qlayaa, where he built a reputation for his closeness to the villagers. Parishioners say he knew every family by name and could often be found visiting the sick, blessing newborns, or comforting the bereaved.
His death, residents say, is not only a personal loss but a symbol of steadfast Christian presence in a war-torn region. “We are here, in our land,” he had proclaimed in one of his last addresses.
His name, al-Rahi—Arabic for “the shepherd”—resonated deeply in the words of Pope Leo XIV, who described him this week as “a true shepherd who remained with his flock with the love and sacrifice of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.”
Now, among the ruins and displacement of Lebanon’s south, the villagers of Qlayaa remember their pastor not as a casualty of war, but as a symbol of faith’s quiet defiance—the priest who chose presence over safety, and peace over escape.
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