Beirut: At a time when supersensitive concerns preoccupied Christians throughout the Middle East, the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese daily Al Safir carried a sensational report on Friday, which purportedly revealed that the Vatican concluded “Lebanon’s Maronites [have] ‘Lost Their Minds’ over the Pursuit of Power.”

Signed by Marilyn Khalifa, the article reported how anonymous “circles from the Vatican” told the daily that the Holy See expressed its disappointment, and was apparently angry because Maronite leaders failed to elect a president.

It further asserted, according to the paper, that Maronites embroiled themselves in Sunni-Shiite disputes instead of looking after their own interests, which, supposedly, was likely to “cost them their role in Lebanon and the region.”

On Saturday, Denise Atallah Haddad followed up with an equally bombastic article in the same paper — titled: “Is Lebanon Still a Refuge for Arab Christians?,” — which pretended to analyse the US Department of State’s 2013 International Religious Freedom Report whose very short chapter on Lebanon affirmed that “societal abuses or discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice” existed in the country. Why Al Safir embellished its reportage by making a link between regional tensions and Lebanese Christians was a mystery.

In fact, while the American source stressed that even though “there was tension and confrontation among religious groups, attributable in part to competition for political power,” it did not link the Sunni-Shiite struggle to the fate of Christians.

Given these unusually vociferous propaganda articles, one wondered what could possibly motivate adding fuel to the fire, and what else could be done to address some of the analytically fraudulent conclusions that were sheer puffery instead of sound journalism. In fact, the most comical reportage was the claim that Vatican officials were “fed up with the Maronites who were not seeing matters clearly,” which betrayed a fundamental truth: It was the Maronite Church at Bkirke [the seat of the institution] that regularly informed senior Vatican officials of developments in Lebanon, not the other way around, and which assumed that Cardinal Bishara Rai would not approve any reportage that earned him and his flock scorn.

Still, Al Safir was not particularly supportive of the Cardinal, and filled its pages with venom against the cleric after the latter visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in May. Others, including the OTV television network that was close to the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), run critical items of the Vatican too, though its editorials seldom reached the level of the Khalifa essay. How else could a sentence like, “The Maronites are not assuming their responsibilities and they have turned a deaf ear to advise, forcing the Vatican to refrain from proposing an initiative to end the dispute over the presidency,” be explained?

Interestingly, Al Safir revealed its hand when it claimed its unnamed Vatican “circles” recommended that Lebanon’s Christians “should help bridge political divides in the country and the region, instead of taking sides,” allegedly wondering: “What is the purpose of the Christians if they will only serve the plans of others?”

Indeed, and according to the paper, this gem focused on a Lebanese obsession that Maronites acted “as slaves of regional projects,” and asserted that the Vatican concluded Christians were “better off leaving the region if they could not contribute to facilitating the functioning of state institutions.” In other words, Al Safir claimed — in the name of the Vatican no less — that the current presidential deadlock ought to end and that the solution was to reach “a Christian agreement over a president who enjoyed the support of all Lebanese figures.”

That president, presumably the FPM’s stealthy candidate General Michel Aoun, enjoyed strong representation in parliament and was capable of reaching an understanding among Christian and Muslim lawmakers, especially March 8 acolytes.

Regrettably, Lebanon was filled by many demagogues who spewed venom at will, although the most recent developments did not bode well. For in addition to these example, one could easily add lost Christian voices to the list. The challenged Syriac Orthodox bishop of Mount Lebanon and Tripoli, George Saliba, added fuel to the fire with utterances that were nonsensical when he criticised France’s offer to grant Iraqi Christians political asylum, describing the move as an attempt to empty the region from the adepts of Christ.

He also denounced Muslims as enemies of Jesus, accusing them of a history of violence and oppression against Christians, which was little more that an un-Christian message of hatred and ignorance. Even if the declaration was made against the fate the befell Christians in Mosul, and though it followed equally confused statements attributed to the Phalange Party’s Labour Minister Sejaan Azzi who placed all blame on Islam, these were false assertions that divided the nation.

Al Safir writers and editors certainly know that the Vatican does not rely on dubious sources to convey its messages. They have centuries of experience that, without exaggeration, puts them in a separate league. Can the same be said about those whose purpose is to gush malice?