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Pope Francis visited the “tunnel of friendship,” connecting the Istiqlal Mosque and the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Sept. 4 as he finished the first leg of his 12-day journey to Asia and Oceania, describing the tunnel as “an eloquent sign, allowing these two great places of worship not only to be ‘in front’ of each other, but also [to be] ‘connected’ to each other.”
It is an image appreciated by Alexander Hendra Dwi Asmara, S.J., a lecturer in Catholic religious education at the Jesuit Sanata Dharma University in Yogyakarta in south-central Java. He believes the pope’s visit will prove a meaningful boost to interreligious relations in Indonesia. “With [the visit’s theme of] ‘Faith, Togetherness and Compassion,’ Pope Francis sends a message of tolerance and humanity,” he said.
During Mass at Jakarta’s main stadium after his tunnel visit, Pope Francis told the more than 100,000 Indonesians in attendance: “Be builders of hope.”
“Guided by the word of the Lord,” he said during his homily, “I encourage you to sow seeds of love, confidently tread the path of dialogue, continue to show your goodness and kindness...and be builders of unity and peace.”
Pope Francis used the occasion of his visit to the Istiqlal Mosque to sign the “Joint Declaration of Istiqlal 2024: Fostering Religious Harmony for the Sake of Humanity” with the grand imam of Istiqlal, Nasaruddin Umar, continuing a global dialogue with prominent Muslim leaders that has typified his papacy. Like other interreligious pronouncements, this latest declaration extends the pope’s efforts to improve relationships among world religions, emphasizing religious belief as a global force for peace and fraternity.
The brief statement calls different faith traditions to join together to confront the twin crises of climate change and “dehumanization,” noting, “The values shared by our religious traditions should be effectively promoted in order to defeat the culture of violence and indifference afflicting our world.”
The declaration can’t help but contribute to Indonesia’s sense of itself as a site of relative calm and tolerance during a time when religious traditions have come into sometimes ruinous conflict in other nations. That self-image has been at times undermined by flare-ups of religiously motivated violence.
In 2021, a militant Islamic couple blew themselves up outside a packed Catholic cathedral on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island during a Palm Sunday Mass, injuring 20 people. In May 2018 three families were involved in a string of deadly Isis-inspired suicide attacks on churches and a police headquarters in the Indonesian city of Surabaya that left 12 people dead.
According to the Indonesia’s Ministry of Home Affairs, 87 percent of Indonesia’s 282 million people are Muslim, 7.4 percent are Protestant, 3 percent Roman Catholic, 1.7 percent Hindu and just under 1 percent Buddhist. With 245 million Sunni, Shia and other adherents to Islam Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
The Pew Research Center reports that Indonesia’s Christians are scattered across the archipelago, but they comprise majorities in the country’s least populous provinces—the six provinces on the island of Papua in the far east of Indonesia include just 2 percent of the country’s overall population but 15 percent of its Christian population.
Responding to America by email on Sept. 5, Father Hendra said Indonesians have learned hard lessons from “the massive interreligious conflict” that roiled the country between 1998 and 2000, when ethnic tensions and religious intolerance “divided and destroyed the unity of the people.” He believes that in recent years, Indonesian society has been most characterized by interreligious tolerance, openness, respect and dialogue.
But, Father Hendra reports, “small and local tensions in some areas” certainly persist.
“In Indonesia, religions are often manipulated for political interests, especially during the local and presidential elections,” Father Hendra said. That cynical politicking has been a source of religious divisions in Indonesian society, and he anticipates that political rhetoric exploiting religious differences will likely continue.
Resistance to the construction of Christian or non-Sunni Muslim places of worship and criminal charges of blasphemy—a potentially serious offense in Indonesia—are evidence of “some degree of negligence” by a central government disinclined to challenge regional political or Islamic authorities. Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration has made use of the nation’s blasphemy law as a political weapon, imprisoning Jakarta’s then-governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian of Chinese descent, for two years under the law in 2017. Mr. Basuki was convicted of insulting Islam after he argued during a gubernatorial campaign speech that a verse from the Quran had been misused to suggest that Muslims could not support non-Muslim candidates.
Since declaring its independence from the Netherlands in 1945, Indonesia has followed a policy of “Pancasila,” that is, “Five Principles” meant to guide the nation, beginning with an official requirement of “belief in the one and only God” and concluding with a fifth principle guaranteeing “social justice” for all. The Indonesian constitution officially endorses freedom of religion, but it also requires that citizens accept restrictions established by law to protect the rights of others and to satisfy “just demands based upon considerations of morality, religious values, security, and public order in a democratic society.” In practice, that has meant Sunni Muslims often dictate social norms among the six religions officially recognized by the state.
In its most recent report tracking global levels of religious restrictions, the Pew Research Center ranks Indonesia in the “very high” category for government restrictions on religion, and the international religious freedom watchdog group Open Doors ranks Indonesia 42nd in its top 50 nations where Christians face the most persecution. In its assessment, Open Doors reports: “The situation for Christians has been deteriorating in recent years, with Indonesian society increasingly influenced by conservative interpretations of Islam.”
It adds that conditions are especially precarious for Christians and converts to Christianity in Aceh province. Sharia law is enforced in Aceh province, where authorities conduct public canings for violations like consuming or selling alcohol, gambling or extramarital sex.
A tendency by government officials to treat Sunni Muslims as first among equals may not be controversial to the general public. An overwhelming majority of Muslims—86 percent—say it is very important to be Muslim to be truly Indonesian, according to Pew’s 2022 survey of South and Southeast Asia. And nearly two-thirds—64 percent—of Indonesia’s Muslims favor making Sharia the official law of the land.
Acts of discrimination or intimidation by Sunni adherents directed at Shia and other Muslim minorities and legitimized by local government officials have been a persistent source of tension, but Christians have also been targeted. According to the U.S. State Department’s 2023 assessment of religious freedom in Indonesia, residents from religious majorities in certain communities sometimes “pressure local authorities to delay or deny the construction or renovation of houses of worship for local religious minorities.” Government officials and police also at times failed to prevent religious and religiously affiliated groups from acts of intimidation, including damaging or destroying houses of worship and the homes of religious minorities.
In an illustration of the phenomenon, Human Rights Watch recounts the experience of the parish community of St. Joannes Baptista in Parung, which purchased land for a church before the introduction of Indonesia’s “religious harmony” regulations in 2006. But “instead of promoting harmony, the law effectively gives the local religious majority veto power over minority places of worship,” Andreas Harsono, H.R.W.’s Indonesia researcher, reports.
After being denied construction approval, members of the parish for years experienced continual harassment from Muslim neighbors. More than a decade later, Mr. Harsono writes, “there is still no church,” and the parish uses tents during services for its 3,000 members that it “often must dismantle…because of pressure from the local administration, especially during Christmas and Easter celebrations.”
In a statement posted on the website of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific, Benny Juliawan, S.J., the Indonesian Jesuit provincial, described the nation’s eight million Catholics as “a tiny minority in the largest Muslim country in the world.” But their social influence belies the small size of the community. According to Father Juliawan, Indonesian Catholics are “quite prominent in various aspects of public life, including business, education, and government.”
Catholic schools, universities, hospitals and charitable organizations are particularly well regarded, Father Juliawan said in his statement, adding that the church “is an active player in the interfaith dialogue.” Pew researchers report that while Christians “make up a relatively small share of Indonesia’s population, they account for a larger percentage of elected officials.”
“The relationship between Catholics and the majority Muslim population has been largely peaceful,” Father Juliawan said. “Of course, discrimination happens, and there have been conflicts, some quite violent in the past, but there is no systemic persecution thanks to the country’s secular constitution.”
The status of minority Christians, he assesses, is “not perfect, but an example nonetheless of how the church is thriving as a minority.”
The government of Indonesia has made efforts to nurture tolerance, especially with an eye to countering the influence of Islamist radical groups, according to Father Hendra. But he is not convinced that “top-down approach” will achieve its goals. So far, some government edicts have just created confusion and provoked the “labeling of others as radical.”
“The grassroots and everyday interreligious movement is more effective than the government policy,” Father Hendra argues, noting the beneficial impact of the interreligious cooperation that was expressed in the humanitarian response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Father Hendra finds the most hope in the acts and attitudes of young Indonesians who seem more open to interreligious dialogue and cooperation. In demonstrations against Mr. Widodo’s “unconstitutional political maneuvers,” the upcoming generation of Indonesians “has been able to unite people across religious traditions.”
Their collaborative political engagement, he suggests, “can be the bridge to build more open and prophetic religions in Indonesia.”
More from America
- At a mosque in Indonesia, Pope Francis and the Grand Imam reach another milestone in Catholic-Muslim dialogue
- Pope Francis in Indonesia: Caring for the poor ‘doesn’t mean being a communist’
- A brief history of the Catholic Church in Indonesia
- The Vatican’s only Indonesian official expects a warm welcome for Pope Francis—from Catholics and Muslims
- Indonesia passes anti-terrorism law after suicide attacks on churches
