By Vatican News staff writer

Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Rai of Lebanon, made the appeal against the political deadlock that is preventing the formation of a new government. “Shirking responsibility for the failure of the government does not help. The solution is not without risks and all these risks represent nothing in the face of the hypothesis of a total collapse,” that the nation is facing, he said at a Mass on Sunday at the headquarters of the Maronite Church in Bkerke, some 22 km north-east of the capital, Beirut.  

Nation at ransom

According to the 80-year old head of the Maronite Church, an agreement is possible between President Michel Aoun and three-time Prime Minister Saad Hariri, if both are able to ignore "the pressure," go beyond "the logic of the division of quotas and portfolios," and act "in the interest of Lebanon." He lamented that a “cautious optimism” of the possibility of the formation of the government that was in the air ahead of Christmas seems to have vanished and the country today is again “at the starting point.”

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