Patriarch Bechara al-Rahi is freely practicing the Lebanese tradition that allows a clergyman to exercise politics like any professional politician. Al-Rahi is hiding behind a long history of interference between the religious and the political fields in Lebanon. And ever since the latter established the Maronite patriarchate (so to speak) following the Lebanese Synod of 1739, the head of the Maronite Church became an involved figure in the political and social scene of Mount Lebanon and all the political entities in this region. The other religious sects proceeded in the same direction and followed the customs established by the patriarch in managing conflicts within a specific sect, or in organizing the relations with the secular authorities and the other sects. The importance of the aforementioned synod resides in the fact that it established the bases of internal work within the institution of the Maronite Church in a manner as to make it more in line with the rituals and teachings of the Catholic Church in Rome on the one hand; and to sketch the borders that the local Maronite notables should abide by in order to impose their authority within the church, on the other hand. The Turkish authorities were not among the Church's interests. The “others” rather consisted of the Druze “mountain princes.” This is the background that the Maronite Church was established upon at the time of its second inception. Patriarch Estephan Duweihi had laid the grounds for this inception some half a century prior to the Lebanese Synod. Since then, many changes occurred and other sects emerged that called for their acknowledgment as identities, ethnicities, and political, cultural, and even “civilized” entities with different levels of independence. Patriarch Al-Rahi comes today from this background. He is not inventing anything new by siding with a specific political party. The history of the Maronite Church can be viewed, at least over the past forty years, as a history that saw a change in affiliations according to the change in the power balance within the sect first, and in Lebanon and the region second. But the present actions of the patriarch are doubly sensitive. In addition to his natural right (according to the structure of Lebanese natural rights, which are non-natural in the rest of the world) in making his political opinions known, and in enhancing the position of the allies that he decided to support, his statement comes at a time when the relations of the religious groups in the region are being reconsidered both through the idea of the “fear of the minorities” or “their alliances.” The least that one can say concerning the deeds and statements of Al-Rahi since his trip to Paris in early September is that he is not prudent; not only because he poured water in the mill of a regime that depends on sectarian violence in order to attract additional violence, but also because he implied that the Lebanese Maronites have made their choice and opted for alliance with the Shi'is in the face of the Sunnis. The outcome of the two conclusions, whether they are right or wrong, will lead to a disaster for the Maronites and the Christians in general. Indeed, the high tide of the Arab revolutions will not regress in front of the concerns of a small sect in a small country such as Lebanon. Standing in the face of these revolutions in addition to providing moral and political support to a regime that is escalating its bloodiness and thus revealing the depth of its crisis, constitutes a definite equation for summoning additional anger that will perhaps be difficult to control once change has occurred. Wisdom is not a popular currency these days, although all the religious-sectarian leaderships pride themselves for it. When an individual selects a side to stand by, this concerns the individual himself first. However, one can claim that the history of the populaces in the Arab Levant is being written right now; and anyone who will defy history will be cast aside. It is that simple.
