Labīb writes:

“We do not know whether Pope Shenouda’s presence at the Bishop Bīshūy monastery was in fact a formal seclusion or something else. This uncertainty and lack of a forthright denial, along with confusing statements....have created a state of confusion and derision. The church's statements were: 1) We don’t know why the Pope is at the monastery, 2)He is praying for Egypt and for the solution of Coptic problems, and 3) He is reading Nabīl Lūqā Bibāwī’s dissertation.

"If seclusion is a form of protest at a problem or about a procedure then in my opinion it is legitimate, so long as it is not translated into a form of sectarian behavior on the part the Egyptian Christian citizen. The danger here is that Pope Shenouda III is a religious and national symbol to an extent not achieved by previous popes. Hence, his occasional silence and seclusion is interpreted by some as something else. Therefore, I feel there was a need for a formal statement from the papal office explaining the Pope’s failure to return from the monastery.

“I believe there is an important question to ask If this is a ‘political seclusion’ as Ahmed Pasha calls it in Rose al-Yūsuf, then why did the Pope resort to that tactic? Was it stubbornness on his part or perhaps an objection to the behavior of certain executive bodies. It follows that if the Pope had to resort to such behavior, then I believe the blame lies primarily with the Egyptian government, which has allowed certain problems to exacerbate...which compelled the Pope to behave thusly, for this behavior frequently has a positive outcome, as it is on many occasions followed by quick solutions to some problems.”