Ayatollah Fadlallah regrets religious leaders drop to level of political leaders

 
Source: nowlebanon.com, 13-02-2009

Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah on Friday said he feared that Lebanon's lack of political authority had begun to spread to the country's religious authorities. The prominent Shiaa cleric also said he regretted the fact that "the voices of some official religious leaders... have ceased to be proponents of reconciliation and harmonization between parties."

During Friday prayers in Beirut's southern suburbs, Fadlallah denounced the use of political discourse to incite partisanship as a start to the June 7 parliamentary elections.

"The picture becomes bleaker by invoking the language of political partisanship as we head to the elections, by continuous preparations to use political money to consecrate leadership and by the exploitation of the economic situation of the people," he told those gathered at the Imamein Husseinein Mosque.

Fadlallah said Lebanese citizens were being held hostage and that their interests were sacrificed to meet "foreign interests, which may coincide with the interests of leaders here or there."

"Political freedom is essential... and is based on citizens asserting their political positions and revealing those positions in the elections, free from financial or political pressure," he concluded.