Politics And Paranoia

An inconsequential political maneuver by the Prime Minister is seen as an existential threat by the Maronite bishops.

The Sunni community in Lebanon is in a middle of a hearts-and-minds battle between bomb-wielding extremists and moderates who have a close relationship with the west. 

The middle ground is hostile to the U.S.A but not so much so as to carry weapons against the government. Until now, they have been comfortably holding on to the side of Seniora. But a combination of the Naher Al Bared fights (where the government is sometimes seen to be using American weapons against fellow Muslims), and Syrian-backed propaganda (by the likes of Sunni cleric Fathi Yakan who turned out to be a terrorist himself), have caused some to waver to rhetoric that effectively undermines Seniora as an infidel and a western pawn. 

This is why Prime Minister Seniora thought it would be a good idea to ratchet up his Islamic credentials by pandering to a potentially dangerous section of the Muslim community. He issued a law (joining the Children’s Rights in Islam Treaty) that sounds good to Islamists without actually meaning anything to non-Muslims (like Lebanon’s membership in the organization of Islamic conferences)

Nevertheless, Christian clerics (the same people who banned The Davinci Code from Lebanon), are fuming and denouncing an “Islamization” of Lebanon. To them, this is not an isolated incident; it has followed other moves by the Seniora government they see as a systematic undermining of the Christians, from hiring more Muslims than Christians in the security services (which is simply because there’s more Muslim young men in Lebanon than Christian), to selling too much land and properties to foreigners (read Saudis).

Christian populist leaders are now all of a sudden fond of the Patriarch again and took the opportunity to discredit the Christians allied with the government from his pulpit. 
A more serious threat to the Christians was better expressed by Archbishop Beshara el Raii when he said:

So if the Sunnis and Shiites agree, their agreement would come at the expense of the Christians,” Raii told As Safir, adding: “And if they disagree, the Christians become their victims.