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Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai left for Iraq Monday where he led a mass at the Our Lady of Salvation church on the first anniversary of an attack that left 58 people dead. Rai was accompanied by Bishop Camille Zaidan and Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan. “It is necessary that we go together [with Younan] to Baghdad to express solidarity with the Iraqi people, the entire Iraqi people who definitely reject violence and war,” Rai told reporters at Rafik Hariri International Airport prior to his departure. “And also to express our solidarity and brotherhood with our Christian brothers and...

Beirut Arab news agency al Nashra reported on Saturday November 22, that [White House Muslim envoy] Dalia Mogahed has succeeded in canceling a meeting between the Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon and President Barack Obama. Writing in al Nashra, the reporter said “an unnamed US source told the news agency, that those who sought canceling a visit of (the spiritual head of the Maronite Church) Patriarch Beshara Rahi to the White House are Dalia Mujahid (Mogahed), the highest adviser on Arab and Islamic Affairs in the State Department, who is from Egyptian origins. And that,” according to al Nashra, “heeding a...

The Maronite Catholic patriarch of Lebanon brought a message of universal forgiveness and mercy Monday to a Uniontown parish overflowing with Lebanese Catholics eager to see him. "Have you ever tried to live in a world without forgiveness? It is a cold, harsh and unbearable world," Patriarch Bechara Peter Rai told 750 people who had greeted him with applause and ululation. St. George Maronite Catholic Church in Uniontown holds 250 people and a tent was erected outside its front door to accommodate 500 more.He said that forgiveness and mercy is needed among Christians, Muslims and Jews, within the Christian church...

Our Lady of Lebanon Chapel Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Washington, DC WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In a ceremony reflecting their Lebanese heritage, Maronite Catholics gathered Sept. 23 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for the consecration of a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Lebanon. "For so long, so many dreamed to have something of our own in Mary's house," said Bishop Gregory J. Mansour of St. Maron of Brooklyn, N.Y., who consecrated and dedicated the chapel. "I am so grateful for all those souls who made this day for Mary...

We are entering the most important week of the liturgical year, the week that prepares us to live intensely the Christian Mystery of the Death and the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ: the Holy Week. The Holy Week is the memorial of those great days of our salvation when Jesus Christ died on the Cross to redeem and save our human race and give us the opportunity to share in His Divine Life. Lent was for us the time to reflect more and meditate upon our lives so that we can renew ourselves and prepare to live again the...

BISHOP BECHARA RAHI (Name Translation: Bechara=Annunciation and Rahi =Shepherd) became our Shepherd on the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25, 2011 at 5:00 pm Lebanon Time) (Picture taken by Fr. Antonio Elfeghali on March 25, 2011) "We will live together this communion through charity in Lebanon whose glory is in its mission... The motto "the Glory of Lebanon is given to him" is taken from Isaiah. It is given to the Patriarch and his church as long as they commit to build the communion and to witness to love. The Glory of Lebanon is diminished when closed in and isolated. But it grows and goes...

Bishop Beshara Rai was elected as the 77th patriarch of the Maronite Catholic Church today. He takes over after the retirement of 91-year-old Nasrallah Sfeir, who had served as the Maronite patriarch for 25 years. A patriarch is the highest-ranking bishop in a particular Church. Maronites were once the most important political bloc in Lebanon but since the 1960s, high emigration rates have reduced the community's size in the country. They still make up more than 20% of the Lebanese population and, according to an agreement enshrined in the country's constitution, the president of Lebanon must always be a Maronite....

BEIRUT (AFP) – Bishop Beshara Rai was elected as the 77th patriarch of Lebanon's influential Maronite church on Tuesday to succeed Nasrallah Sfeir, at a time when his community's political loyalty is deeply divided. Monsignor Youssef Tawk, head of the council of Maronite bishops, announced the news from the church's headquarters in Bkerke, northeast of Beirut, after days of meetings behind closed doors during which the bishops voted on who would succeed the long-serving Sfeir. The head of the Maronite church wields considerable influence in Lebanon, where Christians make up about one-third of the four-million population. Rai, 71, a high-profile...

BEIRUT: The Synod of Maronite bishops will convene on March 9 to elect a successor to Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, whose resignation was accepted last week by Pope Benedict XVI, the Council of Maronite Bishops announced Wednesday. Bishops will gather in a spiritual conclave at the seat of the Maronite patriarchate in Bkirki next Thursday at 6 p.m. in isolation from the outside world for a 15-day period to elect the church’s 77th patriarch, a statement released following the council’s meeting said. The meeting of the Council of Maronite Bishops, held on the first Wednesday of each month, was...

This is an opportunity to inform, exchange, and comment on your church and parish. This blog will use church documents for discussion, and real examples to illustrate church life. It's up to you to make your parish a model for emulation. Please contribute where you can.

The Maronite community of the world is celebrating the installation of the newest statue at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Pope Benedict XVI blessed the 18-foot tall marble statue of St. Maron on the morning of Feb. 23. It was placed into the last open space of a series of large niches in the exterior wall of St. Peter's Basilica. St. Maron established the first "Maronite" community based on a monastic spirituality in the 4th century. This year, the Church is celebrating the 1,600th anniversary of his death. Despite hardship, the Maronite Church has remained intact and in communion with...

For those of you who are wondering what this is all about, allow me to introduce and explain the project. I have been working with Corpus Christi Watershed to produce a film about the three Massabki Brothers and the Emir Abd El-Kader. The Massabki Brothers were three Maronite brothers who were devout Catholics and who gave their lives for their faith during the 1860 massacre of Christians in Damascus. Looters and rioters offered them the choice of renouncing Christ or of being brutally murdered, and they chose the latter. Their story is interesting because they were extremely materially wealthy,...

July 7 Bishop Gregory Mansour and Bishop Robert Shaheen The Maronite Church in America Maronite Church is one of the largest Eastern-rite communities of the Roman Catholic Church, prominent especially in modern Lebanon; it is the only Eastern-rite church that has no non- Catholic or Orthodox counterpart. The Maronites trace their origins to St. Maron, or Maro (Arabic Marún), a Syrian hermit of the late 4th and early 5th centuries, and St. John Maron, or Joannesn Maro (Arabic Yúhanna Marún), the patriarch of Antioch in 685-707, under whose leadership the invading Byzantine armies of Justinian II were routed in...

Beatification of Blessed Stephen Nehme"> Vatican City, Jun 27, 2010 / 11:18 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Previously "venerable" Maronite brother Estephan Nehme was beatified on Sunday morning in Lebanon. The Holy Father remembered Blessed Estephan after the Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square, entrusting the people of Lebanon to his protection.Brother Estephan, whose body was discovered uncorrupted in the tomb of the monastery of Kfifane over a decade after his death in 1938, is remembered as a humble, loving and devout monk. The Maronite Voice, a Glen Allen, Virginia-based publication, described him in its most recent edition as "distinguished for...

How radical Islam makes you: a bigot religiously - a racist ethnically UNIQUENESS OF ISLAM'S INTOLERANCE While Christianity, ever since the termination of the Crusades and the Spanish inquisitions has no plans to "convert by force" anybody else, nor is ever Buddhism or Judaism, Islam --on the other hand-- even modern day Islam is about to Islamize the world, with any means possible. When (thank God) not "yet" accomplished, the Islamists bigotry has a few levels, the "people of the book" a.k.a. Christians & Jews are "allowed" to stay as an inferior class [Dhimmis], the other non-Muslims are "totally"...

Those familiar with the churches of the East know that many Orthodox churches have an Eastern Catholic counterpart. This usually occurred because at some point in history a segment of that particular Orthodox Church decided to enter into communion with Rome and thus broke away from the larger Orthodox church of which they belonged. These Eastern Catholic churches are quite controversial among many Orthodox, who believe that they are “Trojan horse” churches attempting to lure Orthodox believers into the Catholic fold (in fact, their existence at one point caused the disruption of Catholic-Orthodox ecumenical talks). But there is an Eastern...

Communion paves the way for evangelization, says Pope to Maronites    Nicosia, Cyprus, Jun 6, 2010 / 02:26 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict visited the Maronite Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Graces in Nicosia before leaving the country on Sunday afternoon. He called Maronites to be proud of their traditions while remaining tied into the Universal Church.At the cathedral, which has a capacity of around 300 people, Maronite Archbishop Youssef Soueif welcomed Pope Benedict and his entourage composed of members of the Roman Curia in addition to the Custos of the Holy Land, Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa.Assuring the "ancient"...

Over the past three months, several prominent American think tanks and academic institutions have conducted simulation games about the Iranian crisis. Although these war games have nicely covered almost all facets of the problem, they have left one aspect mostly understudied: the nature of Iran's response to a U.S. or Israeli airstrike. I recently took part in two U.S. government-sponsored games in which the participants attempted to provide a modest assessment of that crucial issue. War simulation games are certainly not a new invention in government practice. Indeed, the history of strategy and that of simulation are inseparable. Ever since...

As Christians went forth from Jerusalem they encountered different traditions, cultures, customs and languages, soon the Church became a communion of Churches united in love with each other, looking to the See of Peter in Rome as the first among them all. The Gospel of Christ has reached the four corners of the world. Jesus prayed for their unity, “that they all may be one” (John 17:21). For Catholics united with the Pope in Rome, there is already an amazing unity even within the reality of cultural diversity. The Catholic Church, comprised of twenty-one Eastern Churches and one Western Church,...

  BackgroundSaint Maroun, born in the middle of the 4th century was a priest who latter became a hermit, retiring to a mountain of Taurus near Antioch. His holiness and miracles attracted many followers, and drew attention throughout the empire. St John of Chrysostom sent him a letter around 405 AD expressing his great love and respect asking St Maroun to pray for him. The Maronite MovementSt Maroun is considered the Father of the spiritual and monastic movement now called the Maronite Church. This movement had a profound influence on Northern Syria and Lebanon. Saint Maroun spent all of...