lebanon – Madison Catholic Herald Archive (2001-2025)

MADISON — The Madison Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) Youth Service Council (YSC) recently sent more than $1,000 to St. Vincent de Paul-Lebanon to assist the poor, unemployed, and refugees there.

While attending a national St. Vincent de Paul meeting in Providence, R.I., last fall, YSC members Claire Finucane and DC Morris heard Julien Spiewak, the society’s international secretary general, outline the struggles the country of Lebanon currently faces and how the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is trying to help.

Challenges in Lebanon

The SVdP has been active in Lebanon since 1860 but has recently faced greater challenges than usual.

Lebanese youth await participation in Vatican’s Way of the Cross

BEIRUT (CNS) — When a committee of Catholic youth in Lebanon set out to compose the meditations for the Way of the Cross, they had no idea that a new pope would preside over the Good Friday service at Rome’s Colosseum.

By custom, the pope invites a cardinal or an ecclesial community to prepare the meditations. This year is the first that young people of a particular country were asked to participate. Pope Benedict XVI invited the youth of Lebanon to participate through Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai, who was named a cardinal in November.

Helping the regime change might be better in Syria

To the editor:

Recent media reports from the Middle East and beyond indicate that many Christians of various denominations and rites in Syria are quite nervous, some going so far as to question whether the Arab Spring will wind up being the Christian Winter; this is also a concern for Alawite, Druze, and Shi’ite communities in Syria and Lebanon.

There is no question that what is going on inside Syria cannot be justified as far as implementation goes — unquestionably, the current regime is despotic and shooting at civilians with artillery and all the rest is simply beyond defense. However, seeing what has happened in Iraq and Egypt so far shows that perhaps helping the regime change is vastly preferable to changing the regime.