Distorting the truth in front of the Holy See: Lebanon is between diplomatic neglect and distorting historical memory

David sand wrote in “Call of the Homeland”:

In a precise political moment the country is going through, a disturbing scene that affects the deep and symbolic relationship that brought Lebanon together with the Vatican for decades. This relationship, which formed a spiritual and diplomatic umbrella for a pluralistic society, finds itself today in front of a dangerous deviation, which comes from a deficiency in the Lebanese diplomatic performance in the Holy See, represented in the negative role that prevailed in the previous and continuous era of the present day, and which began to constitute a serious reflection on the image and identity of Lebanon in church and diplomatic forums.

The scene reached its climax on the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the war in Lebanon, when the Vatican metal was issued for the first time adopting the term “Lebanese Civil War” in the angelic preaching that was read in the name of Pope Francis. This transformation is not a linguistic detail or an accidental manner, but rather a historical violation of the Vatican position, which has been for decades, refusing to classify the Lebanese war in this way. Pope Paul VI, and after him Pope John Paul II, and even Pope Benedict XVI, all refused to restrict the war to the framework of my family, but considered it a war imposed on Lebanon due to the intertwining of international factors and the feeding of divisions with local tools, which was confirmed by Pope John Paul II in his message to the world in 1989.

Where did this coup came in the situation? The unfortunate answer lies in a conference of the Sovereignty Forsan Malta Organization held in Rome, where the Lebanese ambassador to the Holy See Ghadi Khoury gave a lecture in the presence of the Cardinal Claudio Gogirotti, Dean of the Eastern Churches Department, known for his pessimistic position on Lebanon as an idea and an entity. Khoury used the term “civil war”, so Gjerotti picked up, and found his way to Pope Francis’s speech. The most dangerous of this is that the blessing granted in the name of the Pope no longer mentioned Lebanon alone as the Vatican has always been, but rather with Syria, in a frightening reduction in the privacy of the Lebanese issue.

This diplomatic relaxation not only reflects a limited understanding of the depth of the relationship between Lebanon and the Vatican, but also reproduces a narrative that contradicts the historical view of the Apostolic Chair towards Lebanon, the country of the message as called the late Pope John Paul II. Perhaps what is most of the mud is that Pope Francis, who once stressed (1 July 2021) the necessity of stopping external interventions in Lebanon and denounced the transformation of politicians into tools abroad, will not be possible to amend or correct what was issued in his name after his death, so everything written is one of the fixed teachings that enter the records of the Church and history.

The continuation of this pattern of dealing with the Vatican, away from coordination with the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, carries with it serious risks to the identity of Lebanon, its role and the message of its existence. It is no longer acceptable to be improvised in performance in front of the most dangerous diplomatic and spiritual platform, because the price will be exorbitant, not only at the level of international relations, but at the level of the Lebanese entity itself, which is intended to be understood abroad in a distorted manner, based on a failure to act and the absence of coordination. Stop improvisation, as Lebanon cannot bear more existential errors.

Al -Ain on the diplomatic formations that the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Youssef Raji is woven with the expert diplomat, as he is the son of the house who knows all his reefs and his hooks, and he is known for the importance of choosing a qualitative personality that has exceptional capabilities to represent Lebanon in the Holy See, as it is sufficient to remember that the first to represent Lebanon with the rank of minister delegated in this very important site is the late President Charles Helou, who with his efforts visited Pope Paul Lebanon.