Lebanon's Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri is to travel to the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Francis on 22 April, a move that stands in contrast to the deepening dispute between Hariri and Lebanon’s Maronite Christian President.
The Papal nuncio in Lebanon, Archbishop Joseph Spiteri, informed Hariri this week of the arranged meeting, alongside a talk with the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Hariri reportedly requested to see the Pope two weeks ago.
The meeting with Pope Francis comes at a significant time for Hariri, who has been tasked with forming a government since the previous one resigned in the wake of the devastating explosion in the port of Beirut last August.
But the process has hit the buffers, and the crisis-ridden country has been without a government for eight months.
Hariri and Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun have been failing to agree on the number of seats in a cabinet made up of nonpartisan specialists, as demanded by French President Emmanuel Macron, despite meeting 18 times since Hariri was designated premier.
Over the last few months, the head of the Maronite Catholic Church, Patriarch Bechara Rai, has attempted to mediate between the two factions, and urged the country’s politicians to put aside their differences during his Easter sermon: “What can we say about those who intentionally obstruct the formation of the government and paralyse the state...We raise our voice with all the Lebanese about the need to form a government...to bring in the promised Arab and international aid.”
Lebanon has been sinking under the weight of the worst economic crisis since the 1975-90 civil war. Decades of state corruption have seen the Lebanese pound lose 90 per cent of its value, skyrocketing inflation and more than half the 6.8 million population plunged into poverty and unemployment.
Rai holds influence in Lebanon as head of the Maronite church, from which the president is drawn as per the terms of the country’s sectarian power-sharing system, while the country’s prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim. Among Lebanon’s population nearly 40 per cent are Christian, among Muslims and Druze.
No information has been publicised regarding the reason behind Hariri’s and the Pope’s meeting, but local commentators have suggested it may be an indirect move to pressurise Aoun to scale back his demands.
Hariri’s trip to the Vatican also follows the Pope’s successful April visit to Iraq, and the Pope’s message that “suffering” Lebanon is the next country he would like to visit.
Last month, Archbishop Spiteri also met with Aoun, reportedly discussing the deteriorating state of the country and the impact of Pope France’s Iraq visit on the region.
Spiteri said that the Holy See is invested in finding a solution to help dend Lebanon’s political paralysis, and root out the systemic corruption that has plagued the country.
- IRAQ: Cardinal urges interreligious harmony
One month after Pope Francis’s visit to Iraq, Cardinal Louis Sako, the Baghdad-based Chaldean Catholic patriarch, said: “Perhaps now is the time to separate religion and the state and build a secular state, one that is not hostile to religion, but rather respects all religions while not including religion in politics.” He felt “this would guarantee coexistence” and called for education programmes on diversity. He suggested conferences and television programmes about the diverse cultures and religions of Iraq to demonstrate how, “that which unites us is much more than that which divides us”.
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