In his Sunday homily, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai likened the Lebanese state to a paralytic. He believes that the country is suffering from immobility due to the loss of sovereignty, foreign interventions aimed at fueling division and disrupting political and democratic life, growing debt, increasing poverty, rising unemployment and stagnating agricultural and industrial production.
Rai thanked the friendly countries that are helping Lebanon emerge from its paralysis. He stressed that the country can only recover and prosper with the concerted efforts of all its inhabitants.
He took as an example the peoples of Europe, who learned from their tragedies, reconciled, purified their memories, distanced themselves from extremism and moved from a logic of military power to one of peaceful and economic power. Rai criticized the practices of the Lebanese, “If we look at Lebanon and consider how we have behaved after every crisis, trial, war and occupation, our faith in our national unity is threatened. It seems to us that our conflicts compete with and spoil the will to live together and that the mentality of gain prevails over the mentality of solidarity, as if Lebanon were a project of positions rather than a project of state.”
Finally, he hoped that Lebanon would be equipped with a system of positive neutrality that would enable it to promote the message of peace, dialogue, protection of the rights of peoples, public freedoms, respect for the dignity of the human person and exemplary coexistence between Christians and Muslims.
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