{"id":6421,"date":"2006-08-20T23:57:03","date_gmt":"2006-08-20T23:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/the-archbishop-of-tyre.html"},"modified":"2006-08-20T23:57:03","modified_gmt":"2006-08-20T23:57:03","slug":"the-archbishop-of-tyre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/the-archbishop-of-tyre.html","title":{"rendered":"The Archbishop of Tyre"},"content":{"rendered":"

USA Today reports:<\/a><\/p>\n

A rather interesting angle – trying to make sure the Christians stay so the present government power balance can be maintained – but with some unanswered questions, nonetheless:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Since last month, the 63-year-old priest has braved bombs, rockets and ground clashes between Israeli forces and the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah, racing over cratered roads and threading past bombed-out bridges to visit his flock in the few Christian towns and villages that dot predominantly Shiite southern Lebanon. His message to the faithful has been that they must stay, despite the danger.<\/p>\n

Thin and bearded, Hage speaks with a raspy voice and is fluent in Arabic, English and French. He took advantage of the fragile, week-old cease-fire to celebrate Sunday Mass here and in another village nearby. <\/p>\n

The exact number of Maronites and other Christians in Lebanon is a mystery. A census could be politically explosive in Lebanon, bringing calls by Muslims to do away with a spoils system that awards Christians the country’s presidency and half the seats in the parliament. Since the end of Lebanon’s 16-year civil war in 1991, Christians have steadily lost power to Shiite and Sunni Muslims, whose populations have grown.<\/p>\n

The CIA estimates the nation’s population of 3.8 million is roughly 60% Muslim and 40% Christian.<\/p>\n

An exodus by Christians could upset the delicate balance of power in the country. The 34-day war that began July 12 prompted Hage to try to prevent such an exodus. <\/p>\n

A string of Maronite villages along Lebanon’s southern border, towns such as Debel, Rmaich and Ain Ebel, is in a particularly tight spot: sandwiched between Hezbollah-controlled towns slightly north and the heavily fortified Israeli border just to the south.<\/p>\n

Maronites, who constitute most of the Christians in southern Lebanon, are members of an Eastern-rite church in communion with the Roman Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

Hage has worked for years to keep the villages populated. He said Maronites act as a peaceful buffer between two warring entities. When shelling began last month, he dashed from town to town as bombs rained down, delivering food and medicine and urging followers to stay put.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

USA Today reports: A rather interesting angle – trying to make sure the Christians stay so the present government power balance can be maintained – but with some unanswered questions, nonetheless: Since last month, the 63-year-old priest has braved bombs, rockets and ground clashes between Israeli forces and the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah, racing over…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Archbishop of Tyre - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/the-archbishop-of-tyre.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Archbishop of Tyre - 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}