What to remember from Pope Francis’ speech in Jakarta
There are priorities that Pope Francis is keen to respect. Before delivering the first of 12 speeches of his Asian journey in Jakarta (Indonesia), the head of the Catholic Church, ignoring fatigue despite his 87 years and a 5-hour time difference, took the time for a warm meeting with orphaned children, refugees welcomed by the Jesuit Refugee Service and homeless people accompanied by the Indonesian community of Sant’Egidio. A first illustration of the motto of his 45th apostolic journey: “Faith, fraternity, compassion.”
He then went to the presidential palace Istana Negara Hall to meet with authorities, representatives of civil society and the diplomatic corps.
In front of President Joko Widodo, the head of the Vatican State immediately stressed the values of Indonesian society: “One could almost say that, just as the ocean is the natural element that unites all the Indonesian islands, mutual respect for the cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious specificities of all the human groups that make up Indonesia is the connective tissue that makes the Indonesian people united and proud.”
The constitution of Indonesia, a democratic country where more than 80% of its 275 million inhabitants are Muslim, has in fact guaranteed since 1945 the equality of rights of all, regardless of their religion. Recognizing how “this balance (is) delicate”, the Argentine Pope emphasizes the responsibility of political action to maintain it, and affirms the availability of the Catholic Church to “strengthen interreligious dialogue (in) a climate of mutual respect and trust”.
Without naming specific situations, Francis then broadens his view: “Unfortunately, in today’s world there are trends that prevent the development of universal fraternity. In various regions, we are witnessing the emergence of violent conflicts, which are often the result of a lack of mutual respect, of the intolerant desire to assert one’s own interests, one’s own position or one’s own partial historical narrative at all costs, even if this causes infinite suffering for entire communities and leads to real bloody wars.” Under these general terms, it is not difficult to recognize the tragedies that are tearing apart the countries that the Pope regularly evokes during the Angelus prayer, every Sunday, before the pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square, in the Vatican: Ukraine and Russia, Palestine and Israel, Burma, Yemen, Sudan, Syria, …
The Argentine Pope’s speech also highlights the “numerous situations where there is a lack of effective and far-sighted commitment to building social justice”, which deprives “a considerable part of humanity (of) the means for a dignified existence” and leads to social imbalances. “And how is this problem resolved?” asks Francis. “By a law of death, that is, by limiting births, by limiting the greatest wealth of a country, which is the birth rate”, he replies, surprisingly, highlighting the demographic dynamism of the country that welcomes him. “Perhaps some families prefer to have a cat, a small dog, and not a child”, says Jorge Bergoglio, who lives in Italy, the second country with the most elderly people in the world, after Japan, with 168.7 elderly people for every 100 young people *.
A denunciation of secularized Western countries and Islamist regimes
The head of the Catholic Church is expected to speak of God. Francis does so with respect for the host country where Muslims and Christians generally live peaceful relations. After emphasizing the mention in Indonesia’s constitution of “the need for the blessing of Almighty God on the Indonesian state,” the Bishop of Rome targets secularized Western countries by evoking “contexts” where “this blessing is considered superfluous for human beings and civil society.” Francis also denounces the opposite attitude “where faith in God is continually put in the foreground, but often to be unfortunately manipulated and to serve not to build (…) the country, but to foment divisions and hatred,” a veiled description of Islamist regimes.
References to Indonesian history and a continuation of the journey in Papua New Guinea
Pope Francis takes leave of Indonesian leaders by encouraging them to work daily for the good of all. Not without slipping in a discreet allusion to breaches of the guiding principles of the Indonesian Republic that occurred “during historical events”. Since 1963, the date of its attachment to Indonesia, West Papua, a former Dutch colony with a Christian majority, has experienced a bloody confrontation between supporters of independence and the central government. Re-elected in 2019, President Joko Widodo has allied himself with the military and Islamist conservatives to repress the Papuans who are still demanding the self-determination referendum of which they were deprived by the Suharto dictatorship (1967 – 1998). On Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 September, Francis will continue his apostolic journey to Papua New Guinea, the independent part of the island of Papua.
Indonesia, on the other hand, toughened its penal code in 2022. A wide range of “immoral” behaviors are criminalized, including sodomy, extramarital sex, abortion. Apostasy, or encouraging others to renounce their religion, is also punishable by prison sentences. These moral provisions of the code have been defended by Islamic parties, but have also received support from all non-Islamic parties in parliament. These laws, which could tarnish Indonesia’s image of tolerance, are not scheduled to come into force until the end of 2025.
* National Statistical Institute, 2018.
