{"id":632,"date":"2007-10-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-10-01T20:26:49","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T20:26:49","slug":"lebanese-catholics-fear-syrian-islamic-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/lebanese-catholics-fear-syrian-islamic-influence\/","title":{"rendered":"Lebanese Catholics Fear Syrian, Islamic Influence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\n<P style=\"LINE-HEIGHT: 108%\"><BR><BR><B><SPAN lang=AR-SY style=\"FONT-SIZE: 11pt; COLOR: #800000; FONT-FAMILY: 'Varanda'\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/B><\/SPAN><BR><BR><SPAN lang=AR-SY style=\"FONT-SIZE: 11pt; COLOR: #0000ff; FONT-FAMILY: 'Varanda'\">Beirut &#8211; cwnews &#8212; <\/SPAN><SPAN lang=AR-SY style=\"FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Varanda'\">Maronite Catholic prelates called for national unity in Lebanon, and deplored excessive foreign influence in the country&#8217;s affairs, as they ended a monthly meeting on October 2. <BR><BR>Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir said that Lebanon needs a president &#8220;who can uplift the country, who will be agreed upon by all the Lebanese, and who knows how to unity the Lebanese people.&#8221; The election of such a leader, the Patriarch conceded, will not be easy &#8220;due to interference&#8221; by outside powers. Patriarch Sfeir has frequently criticized Syrian influence in Lebanon. <BR><BR>In a joint statement, the Maronite hierarchy also criticized foreign influence, expressing the concern that &#8220;there will come a time when the Lebanese will feel like outsiders in their own country.&#8221; Archbishop Bechara Rai of Jbeil sounded a slightly different theme, telling reporters that the country&#8217;s Christians are endangered by the power struggle between Sunni and Shiite Muslim factions. <BR><BR>He charged that Lebanon&#8217;s current government, headed by Prime Minister Fouad Seniora, is &#8220;taking Lebanon toward Islamization.&#8221; <BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><\/SPAN><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Beirut &#8211; cwnews &#8212; Maronite Catholic prelates called for national unity in Lebanon, and deplored excessive foreign influence in the country&#8217;s affairs, as they ended a monthly meeting on October 2. Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir said that Lebanon needs a president &#8220;who can uplift the country, who will be agreed upon by all &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-assyrian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}