The Maronite Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros Raï stated that the Lebanese are suffering and making sacrifices while the state is preoccupied with trivial matters.
Raï emphasized during his speech at the Mass for the Feast of St. Maroun in Bakka, that Lebanon today needs a firm international role to implement previous international resolutions, even if new resolutions must be issued, pointing out that those responsible in Lebanon are competing to obstruct internal solutions. This "drives us to look to the United Nations to save Lebanon." He called on all forces that believe in the unity, sovereignty, and uniqueness of Lebanon in this region to collaborate in order to formulate a national situation that restores Lebanon and puts it on a path of revival.
The patriarch had said in his Sunday sermon, "O officials, neither the state is yours nor is the people livestock to be slaughtered for your interests and indifference," asserting that "the people will rise again in the streets, will revolt and hold accountable, and hopes for forming a government have gone to waste."
