Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Beirut (Agenzia Fides) - For all the Lebanese "it is inconceivable that foreign parties or factions claim to determine the demographic and political scenarios of Lebanon for decades to come". It is unacceptable "to entrust anyone to decide our fate".
This is how the Executive Council of the Maronite League expressed itself in a public appeal in which the alarm about the "serious dangers" which threaten the identity and survival of the Lebanese nation is raised. The body, established in the seventies to support the identity and the Maronite presence in Lebanon and around the world, in the appeal describes the condition of the Lebanese State as alarming even though the country has always been a place of tolerance and cultural and civil development, both for Christians and for Muslims.
According to the leaders of the Maronite League, the Lebanese should not "align with the foreign axes that damage their homeland and their unity".
Referring to the internal conflicts that paralyze the political and institutional life of the country, the pronouncement of the League speaks of Christians "divided between two currents involved in a historical conflict that does not concern them as Christians", and Muslims "involved in sectarian conflicts in the background of regional strategies that cross geographical boundaries".
In addition to highlighting the need to urgently elect a new president and to find political consensus on a new electoral law, the Maronite body indicates the path of the gradual overcoming of political confessionalism and recalls the political forces to support the neutral position of Lebanon with regards to regional conflicts, adding that "neutrality does not mean a neutral attitude toward Israel". (GV) (Agenzia Fides 13/11/2014)
