Maronite Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros Raï addressed the officials, saying: "Until when will you deprive the people of their right to be liberated from their suffering, to live joyfully, and to advance economically and socially?"
In his sermon on Sunday, Patriarch Raï stated: "We have unnecessarily exceeded the usual time frame for forming a government that fundamentally relies on constitutional and covenant standards, with the interest of the people and the nation as its goal. It is time for you to draw lessons from this failure; form a 'government of conscience' and have your conscience sign it."
He also noted that "it is shameful not to create a new approach that transcends the deadlocks, conditions, interests, capriciousness, and rejection of the other. The oppressed people want to form an elite, independent ministerial team, away from the mentality of partisan sharing, bolstered by experienced individuals in both reform and national matters to face upcoming developments. The people want a government based on the criteria of complete rotation and non-monopolization of portfolios and dominance over its work."
He pointed out that "it is not required from the President of the Republic or the designated president to relinquish their constitutional powers to form a government, but rather to engage in dialogue and cooperate without undisclosed backgrounds or reservations," emphasizing that "the concern for powers does not preclude flexibility in positions or hinder understanding. Unfortunately, we observe that the process of forming a new government is complicating instead of easing, which causes significant harm to the state, its economy, finances, and security stability, paralyzing its public institutions and dismantling its components while humiliating its people."
Raï questioned: "By what right do you do this? No, this is not the concept of authority where its holders fail to dialogue among themselves at the expense of the state that is collapsing. On the other hand, we have no constitutional authority today to resolve the disputes that paralyze the life of constitutional institutions."
Raï called for organizing a special international conference on Lebanon under the sponsorship of the United Nations, stating: "We are not ready to let the model nation, which we established together and built and elevated to the level of civilized nations, fall before darkness or surrender to transient projects that contradict the essence of Lebanese existence. Throughout our history, we have committed to prioritizing civilizational, political, and diplomatic solutions, not military solutions."
In conclusion, Raï asserted: "Such an international conference does not strip Lebanon of its decision-making, sovereignty, and independence—these are already currently absent—but it reclaims them from their sources and returns them to the state, legitimacy, and the people of Lebanon. The international conference removes external interventions that hinder the crystallization of a free and comprehensive national decision, and it asserts the state of Lebanon while ensuring its positive neutrality. It remains for the United Nations to find the legal means to fulfill its duty towards the state of Lebanon, which is under threat."
On the sixteenth anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Raï renewed condolences to his family.
