Meet Lebanon’s Father Hanna Dagher

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by Spencer Osberg

Father Hanna Dagher is assiduous, working 18 hours most days. Each morning, he rises at 5:15 a.m. and celebrates Mass at Our Lady of Protection Church, located in the Sin el Fil neighborhood on the outskirts of Beirut.

He spends the remaining morning hours in the church’s basement, which houses the Theological and Pastoral Studies Institute. As the institute’s director, he has his fair share of paperwork. From behind his desk, he steadily works his way through church-related files and financial documents, research notes and student assignments.

The institute offers a three-year degree that graduates can apply toward a college degree program or to seminary or novice programs. Courses offerings include bible studies, theology, history and psychology.

As midday approaches, Father Dagher sets off to the public school where he works as a guidance counselor for youth with psychological issues. When school lets out in the afternoon, the indefatigable 58 year old continues his workday. Putting on his teaching cap, Father Dagher lectures at various religious institutes, seminaries and convents in and around Beirut. In addition, he advises seminarians and novitiates, often leading their prayer groups, and works closely with church youth groups.

Father Dagher, however, does not always keep this daily routine. Once a week, he tackles current issues related to spirituality and faith on his television and radio program, which airs on Al Mahabba radio station, and TéléLumière television channel. He also writes a column that appears regularly in Al Bouchra magazine.

The third of ten children, Father Dagher grew up in Rmeyleh, a poor farming community in southern Lebanon near the city of Sidon. At the age of 13, he says he began feeling a deep sense of responsibility toward others as well as a need to act on this responsibility. As Father Dagher describes it, this ethical awakening was a call to the priesthood and soon after he entered the seminary.

Deeply troubled by the sectarianism and violence that plagues his native Lebanon, Father Dagher focuses much of his commentary on trying to bring together people from all sides, particularly those at odds with one another within the country’s diverse Christian community.

“During the [Lebanese] civil war [from 1975-1990], sometimes in one family there would be two brothers, one with each political party, and they would be fighting each other, so it was really hard,” explains the priest.

The war and the entrenched sectarianism it fueled, in many ways, have scarred Lebanon’s Christian community. Father Dagher says he tries to teach students “that they are brothers after all. When you have true faith, politics doesn’t matter any more.”

Father Dagher believes his best teaching method is to set an example through his actions. “The biggest service one can give to the community, is to live his life for God, to be a role model, its not by talking or giving money, it to be role model to show others how to lead the spiritual life,” explains the priest. “If they want to learn about love or forgiveness, they need to see me love and forgive.”

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