Syriac Maronite Patriarch al-Rai reiterates need to fill presidential vacuum in Lebanon 

BETH KERKE, Lebanon — During his Sunday sermon, Syriac Maronite Patriarch Mor Bechara Butros al-Rai stated that it is necessary to expedite the election of a president for Lebanon. 

“Moral and human values are evidently decreasing in our society, in speech and interaction,” Patriarch al-Rai stated. “Everyone agrees on the loss of human values and feeling.” 

The Patriarch declared that politics is being emptied of its noble content of securing the public good. “We face a political group that is devoid of any responsibility,” said the Patriarch. “It practices politics only for its own interests and destroys the public good without caring about the people who entrusted it with this responsibility under the Constitution.” 

Patriarch al-Rai said that the failure to elect a president has hampered the parliament’s ability to legislate. The caretaker government lacks the legitimacy to issue executive decisions and make appointments in public administrations. As a result, the state’s work is disrupted and controlled by the powerful. 

The Patriarch added that the only solution to end the crisis of the presidential vacuum is to elect a president who is liberated from all links, bias, groups, and axes. Lebanon needs a president who can earn the confidence of the entire country and the Lebanese abroad to institute the necessary reforms to obtain international assistance, he added.