Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Sydney (Agenzia Fides) - Only the immediate election of a new Christian President can ensure the continuation of a Lebanese democracy, founded on the sharing of power between Christians and Muslims, blocking the road to those who would like to tamper with such institutional balance. This is what the Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites, Bechara Boutros Rai said on the alarm regarding the political impasse experienced by the Country of the Cedars which for months has prevented the Country from finding a successor to President Michel Sleiman, whose term expired last May. The Primate of the Maronite Church, engaged in a pastoral visit at the Maronite community in Australia, expressed his concerns during the Mass celebrated on Sunday, November 2 at the Church of Saint Charbel, in Sydney.
The Lebanese institutional system is founded on a balance on sectarian basis which entitles a Maronite Christian as President of the Republic. Since the end of March, all parliamentary sessions convened to elect a new President have fallen through, also due to the division of the Christian parties, on opposite sides in the conflict between the two dominant blocs, the "March 8 Coalition" and the "March 14 Coalition" which for years have been on the national political scene.
In his homily, Patriarch Rai stressed that the impasse threatens the very existence of the only "Christian Head of State in the Middle East", adding that "only a Christian President can ensure the Muslim and Christian coexistence and perpetuate the model of power-sharing that characterizes Lebanon in the Arab context". In his speech, Cardinal Rai warned the divided Lebanese political elite from yielding to the arguments of those who, in order to overcome the impasse, suggest to inaugurate a "constituent" phase, which aims to change the institutional set up to introduce a tripartite system, in which power is shared equally not between Christians and Muslims, but between Christians, Muslim Shiites and Muslims Sunnis. (GV) (Agenzia Fides 03/11/2014)
