Maronite Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros Rahi said: “When politics falls into the trap of narrow interests, it bears no fruit; when decisions land on the rock of division, they do not stand; and when reform is suffocated by the thorns of sectarian power-sharing, it dies.”

In his Sunday Mass sermon, he continued: “We want Lebanon to be like good soil, a free, sovereign and independent nation founded on justice and the Constitution. We hope that the ongoing negotiations over the south and sovereignty will bear fruit in a way that safeguards Lebanon’s rights, puts an end to the attacks, and ensures the withdrawal from our land.”