Lebanon Looks to Its Maronite Patriarch to Fill the Void of Leadership

 

     

Lebanon – The Daily Star — Over the past few months, Lebanon has been careening like a rudderless ship toward the iceberg of a full-blown crisis over the presidential election.

Even before impact, the ship is already sinking: the failure to resolve the power struggle between the ruling coalition and the opposition has steered the political class away from the duties of governance and toward a dangerous war of words that has undermined the cohesion of the state. With no apparent solution to the deadlock in sight, Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir’s expected statement in early September looms like the beacon of a lighthouse in Lebanon’s stormy waters.

In the Lebanese political scene, Sfeir has been used and abused by all and sundry, his words twisted and interpreted by all sides as a political boost to their respective positions. Yet despite all attempts to draw him into the country’s political feud, the patriarch has remained focused on the more important objective of preserving Lebanon’s national unity.

While exercising his role as a Christian cardinal, he has emphasized the need for harmonious existence with the country’s Muslim communities, and has thus acted as a shepherd not to one sect, but to a nation. In this regard, Sfeir has remained true to the vision of Pope John Paul II, who emphasized the need for peaceful co-existence in Lebanon. http://www.dailystar.com.lb

It is perhaps because Sfeir has been so successful in playing the role of an impartial spiritual guardian that all parties are now anxiously awaiting his statement in September and hoping that he will provide the nation with the guidance that is needed to steer the country away from its reckless course. The burden that is being placed on the patriarch is a heavy one for a Christian cleric to bear. Ordinarily, a nation should look toward a religious leader for spiritual guidance, not for solutions to its temporal problems. But because the political class has long neglected its duties and responsibilities, many citizens are now looking to Sfeir to fill the void of leadership.

It is for this reason that we implore the patriarch to encourage the Lebanese address the faulty design of the country’s political system, which constantly threatens to divide the nation into warring sectarian statelets. Perhaps it is paradoxical to ask a religious leader to guide the country toward a civil state, but such a transformation is required in order to preserve Lebanon’s cohesion, sovereignty and freedom – qualities which Sfeir has long championed. If Sfeir can shine a light on a new way forward, perhaps others who have until now lacked the courage to embark on another course will follow.