BEIRUT (CNS): Marking the anniversary of Lebanon’s massive popular uprising against the corrupt political class, Bechara Cardinal Rai, the patriarch of Maronite Catholics, encouraged the country’s young people to continue their protest movement.
More than a million Lebanese of all religions, sounding their cries in unison, took to the streets on 17 October 2019. The protests, which continued for months, diminished during the Covid-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic lockdowns.
“We note with immense sorrow that the political class still ignores and even despises the demands of the demonstrators and the people,” Cardinal Rai, said in his October 18 homily from Bkerke, the patriarchate north of Beirut.
Cardinal Rai said, “Nothing moves them (the country’s officials). Neither the revolution, nor the explosion at the port, nor the destruction of the capital, nor the economic and financial collapse, nor the pandemic, nor poverty, nor the death of innocent people.”
Lebanon was traumatised by the massive double explosion on August 4 which ripped through Beirut’s port (Sunday Examiner, August 16); considered one of the world’s most powerful non-nuclear explosions. The disaster, blamed on 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate stored for years in a port warehouse, killed more than 190 people, injured more than 6,500 and left more than 300,000 people homeless.
The disaster came as Lebanon veers toward economic collapse, pushing its population deeper into poverty.
The country has been without a fully functioning government since prime minister, Hassan Diab, now caretaker prime minister, submitted his Cabinet’s resignation on August 10 over the port explosion.
“They have lost the respect of the people and of the international community,” accusing “those who hold the reins of power of having neutralised the state as an institutional entity in the service of the people.”
— Cardinal Rai
Cardinal Rai criticised Lebanon’s political leaders for delaying the government formation process and accused them of plunging the country into a state of “paralysis.” Lebanese officials, he observed, “have no more shame.”
He said, “They have lost the respect of the people and of the international community,” accusing “those who hold the reins of power of having neutralised the state as an institutional entity in the service of the people.”
The cardinal charged, “No one is innocent,” stressing that “responsibility is collective.”
Cardinal Rai told the country’s leaders, “You are responsible for a crime, that of placing the country in a state of total paralysis, in addition to the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.” Lebanon has seen a surge in coronavirus cases, prompting the lockdown of nearly 100 towns in the country.
The cardinal pointed to the positive outcome of the popular uprising, which he said had “succeeded in bringing about a change in the Lebanese personality, to breathe new life into the people and to mobilize them in favour of building a free, strong and modern state.”
It managed to unify Lebanese of different religions, cultures and partisan affiliations, he said, “to consolidate the peaceful concept of change.”
The cardinal encouraged a “renewed” peaceful demonstration movement, that is “ethical, independent and unaffiliated with anyone.”
Cardinal Rai stressed, “We want a unitary revolution defining Lebanese objectives with boldness and clarity, which carries a constructive social and national programme, without the protesters arguing among themselves about their demands. We want a revolution that reemerges with a new united leadership, which represents the people and which is the interlocutor of the state and the international community.”
The demonstration movement, the cardinal said, “represents an opportunity for change through democracy, heritage and values. Young men and women of Lebanon, set out for change,” he encouraged.
“You are the future of Lebanon and it is about you that your friend (Pope) John Paul II was talking about when he described you as being the renewed strength of Lebanon,” Cardinal Rai said of the saint’s proclamation that “Lebanon is a message.”
The cardinal added, “We are with you.”
