The Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai on Monday said that a national dialogue amid a power vaccum at the levels of the presidency and cabinet should be conditioned by "clear consciences."
Last week, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri canceled his initiative for a national dialogue and claimed that some parties, including the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement, refused to participate.
Following a meeting of the council of Catholic bishops, Rai also said "clear consciences are a condition to undergo an honest dialogue, and those who make war cannot make peace."
"Those who created war are still in power and did not manage to cleanse their past … and we hear how they exchange hurtful words," Rai added. Many of the state's top political leaders were among the main players in the Lebanese Civil War, which began in 1975 and ended in 1990.
"After six years of Aoun's mandate, they did not want to elect a new president and their accomplishment was to bring the flag down and close the Presidential Palace, handing [power] to a caretaker government while Lebanon finds itself in the worst situation," Rai said, without naming exactly who he was criticizing.
"Lebanon is going through the most dangerous phase in its political and economic history. We wish they would listen to the pope's calling yesterday," the patriarch added.
On Sunday, Pope Francis called on Lebanese politicians to "put aside" their "personal interests."
Last Tuesday, as Michel Aoun's term as president ended, Lebanon entered for the first time in its history a double vacuum at the level of the presidency and cabinet. On Thursday, Parliament decided that — in contrast with what usually happens in the case of a presidential vacuum, when the prerogatives of the president are transferred to cabinet — as the current government is serving in a caretaker capacity, its authority is limited to managing day-to-day affairs and it may not meet as a cabinet or assume the president's prerogatives.