Maronite Patriarch to young people: Lebanon needs your revolution

The cardinal again addresses the ruling class, guilty of the political, economic, institutional and social crisis. He calls for a "breach" to emerge from the crisis without waiting for "deadlines" imposed from abroad. Politicians "not masters of the people, but servants". Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Beirut: no "mercy" for the victims of the explosions.

Beirut (AsiaNews / Agencies) -    Maronite Patriarch Card Beshara Raï  is calling for a "a breach" in the generalized blockade imposed on the political, economic and financial  life of the nation, without waiting for the "deadlines" dictated from abroad.

He was speaking yesterday in his homily for Sunday Mass, particularly addressing young people asking them not to leave the country. "I understand your distrust and I share your disappointment [...], but Lebanon needs your revolution and your anger".

The leader of the Maronite Church again spoke of the political, economic and institutional crisis that has (for some time now) rocked the land of cedars. Covid-19 has delivered the final blow to this already precarious situation, pushing 55% of the population below the poverty line in a context of continuous emergency which has also triggered, among others, an increase in suicides.

Yesterday in Dimane, Card Raï pronounced a new indictment against the Lebanese ruling class that pays "little attention" to the needs of the people and where "a political group" controls the "destiny" of the nation and makes the arduous attempts to form a government fail.

The Cardinal emphasized "we say: you are not the masters of the people, but their servants". He invites us to look to the Constitution to break the deadlock without waiting for interventions from abroad, to overcome "the constitutional coma into which the nation has fallen".

Card Raï's latest thought is addressed to young people, who must "think deeply" before making the decision to emigrate because "economic, financial, social and health crises are everywhere in the world". Lebanon, he concluded, “above all needs you. [The country] needs your revolution, your anger, your conscience, your education, your culture, your nobility and your way of life”.

Metropolitan Élias Audi, bishop of the Greek Orthodox of Beirut, also attacked the ruling class yesterday. During Mass celebrated in the cathedral of St. George he repeatedly stressed the lack of "mercy", especially among politicians who define themselves "Christians".

"Where is mercy - the prelate asked - if the inhabitants of the neighbourhoods devastated by the twin explosion of last August 4 have not yet returned to their homes, while winter is upon us?". The danger, he warns, is that of an "alienation of their social, cultural and architectural identity" for neighbourhoods that "hand down the memory of Beirut" and that "have resisted the war and attempts at destruction".