Pope Francis praises Indonesia’s “magnificent mosaic” of ethnic and religious harmony in historic visit to the world’s largest Muslim majority nation and democracy
“I am grateful to those who work with the conviction that we can live in harmony and peace, and are aware of the need for a more fraternal world. I hope that our communities may increasingly be open to interreligious dialogue and be symbols of the peaceful coexistence that characterizes Indonesia.”
~ His Holiness Pope Francis
JAKARTA, Indonesia — On 3 September 2024, His Holiness Pope Francis arrived in Jakarta for the first papal visit to Indonesia in over 34 years. As the New York Times reported:
Pope Francis began an 11-day tour of four island nations across Southeast Asia and Oceania last week, an ambitious trek to faraway corners of the Roman Catholic world.
His first stop was Indonesia, a country made up of thousands of islands with the largest Muslim population in the world, as well as millions of people following other religions. There, Pope Francis talked about interfaith dialogue and coexistence, praising Indonesia as nurturing harmony between its different ethnicities, languages and religions, which he compared to the country’s rich ecological biodiversity. (“Inside the Pope’s Visit Across Asia and Oceania,” New York Times, 4 September 2024).
Originally planned to occur in 2020, but delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Pope Francis’s invitation to Indonesia was facilitated by KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, Chairman of the world’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). Mr. Staquf proposed the trip to Indonesian President Joko Widodo as part of a wider strategy to strengthen cooperation and dialogue between the world’s major faith communities.
The Honorable Yaqut Cholil Qoumas (above, left), Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs and co-founder of the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, welcomed Pope Francis to Indonesia. The younger brother of Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman KH. Yahya Cholil Staquf, Mr. Qoumas is also the former Chairman of NU’s 8-million-strong young adults movement, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, and of Barisan Ansor Serbaguna Nahdlatul Ulama, or Banser — which is widely known as the “Islamic Militia that Protects Churches.”
The Pope’s visit to Indonesia received massive international coverage across print, broadcast, and social media. Another New York Times article, dated 3 September 2024, noted that “Much of the credit for changing [negative Muslim] attitudes [towards Christians] has gone to the Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Muslim social organization in the world, with some 150 million members. Its leader, Yahya Cholil Staquf, said the group had protected churches from extremist groups and lobbied local officials to let them be built.”
“Yahya Cholil Staquf, leader of the Muslim group Nahdlatul Ulama, said it had protected churches from extremists.” Credit: Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times
Welcoming the Pope to Indonesia, Mr. Staquf said:
On behalf of the Central Board and members of Nahdlatul Ulama, I would like to welcome Pope Francis’s historic visit to Indonesia. Welcome to the land of oneness and unity, the land of tolerance and brotherhood, the nation of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (“Unity Within Diversity,” Indonesia’s national motto). It is my hope that Pope Francis’s visit may help foster harmony among the citizens of our nation, as well as universal fraternity among all mankind.
In an address delivered to Indonesia’s President, President-elect, cabinet ministers, foreign diplomats, and civil society leaders at Jakarta’s Presidential Palace (photo above), His Holiness Pope Francis said:
Just as the ocean is the natural element uniting all Indonesian islands, mutual respect for the specific cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious characteristics of all groups present in Indonesia is the indispensable and unifying fabric that makes Indonesians a united and proud people.
Your national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, captures well this multifaceted reality of diverse peoples firmly united in a single nation. It also shows that, just as the great biodiversity present in this archipelago is a source of richness and splendour, your specific differences contribute to forming a magnificent mosaic, in which each tile is an irreplaceable element in creating a great original and precious work. This is your treasure, your greatest riches.
The official motto of Pope Francis’s apostolic journey to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore was “faith, fraternity, compassion.” The pontiff elaborated on this theme in remarks delivered to an interreligious gathering held on 5 September 2024 at Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque:
I would like to leave you with two suggestions to encourage you on the path of unity and harmony that you have already embarked upon.
The first is always look deeply, because only in this way can we find what unites despite our differences… The visible aspects of religions — the rites, practices and so on — are a heritage that must be protected and respected. However, we could say that what lies “underneath,” what runs underground…. is the one root common to all religious sensitivities: the quest for an encounter with the divine, the thirst for the infinite that the Almighty has placed in our hearts, the search for a greater joy and a life stronger than any type of death, which animates the journey of our lives and impels us to step out of ourselves to encounter God. Here, let us remember that by looking deeply, grasping what flows in the depths of our lives, the desire for fullness that dwells in the depths of our hearts, we discover that we are all brothers and sisters, all pilgrims, all on our way to God, beyond what differentiates us.
The second suggestion is to preserve the bonds between you… Sometimes we think that a meeting between religions is a matter of seeking common ground between different religious doctrines and beliefs no matter the cost. Such an approach, however, may end up dividing us, because the doctrines and dogmas of each religious experience are different. What really brings us closer is creating a connection in the midst of diversity, cultivating bonds of friendship, care and reciprocity. These relationships link us to others, allowing us to commit ourselves to seek the truth together, learning from the religious traditions of others, and coming together to meet our human and spiritual needs. They are also bonds that allow us to work together, to move forward together in pursuit of the same goals: defence of human dignity, the fight against poverty and the promotion of peace. Unity is born from personal bonds of friendship as well as mutual respect and defence of the ideas of others and their sacred spaces. May you always cherish this!
I thank you for the common path you are taking. Indonesia is a great country, a mosaic of cultures, ethnicities and religious traditions, a rich diversity, which is also reflected in the varied ecosystem. If it is true that you are home to the world’s largest gold mine, know that the most precious treasure is the determination that differences can be harmonized through concord and mutual respect instead of being a cause for conflict. You are known for this harmony. Do not lose this gift! Do not impoverish yourselves of this great treasure. On the contrary, cultivate it and pass it on, especially to the young. May no one succumb to the allure of fundamentalism and violence. May everyone instead be awestruck by the dream of a free, fraternal and peaceful society and humanity!
Thank you for your kind smiles, which always shine on your faces and are a sign of your beauty and inner openness. May God preserve this gift. With his help and blessing go forth, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, united in diversity. Thank you!
From 2017 – 2020, the U.S.-based Religious Freedom Institute (RFI) conducted an intensive three-year research project funded by Templeton Religion Trust, which examined the state of religious freedom in eight nations of South and Southeast Asia, including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Led by Dr. Timothy Samuel Shah, the project’s outputs included a groundbreaking 88-page Indonesia Religious Freedom Landscape Report, which employed a revolutionary analytical framework based on the principle of “positive deviance.”
As the report explains, “Positive deviance is based on the observation that there are certain individuals and groups in every community whose uncommon behaviors and strategies enable them to solve problems more effectively than similarly situated peers. Cases of ‘positive deviance’ offer valuable lessons that are rarely scrutinized, analyzed, or disseminated in a form that would be of practical benefit to the cause of promoting religious freedom.”
The report concluded that
Indonesia provides the most striking example of “positive deviance” in an otherwise discouraging neighborhood… Significantly, Indonesia is the only Muslim-majority country in the modern world that has witnessed a dramatic increase in the size and influence of its Christian population since it became an independent nation state. This is in sharp and dramatic contrast to the near collapse of Christian minority populations in most of the Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East, North Africa, and even South Asia, Pakistan foremost among them… Though many factors are at work, one crucial reason that Indonesia is a relative bright spot within the religious freedom landscape of South and Southeast Asia and the Muslim world is a single civil society organization: the Nahdlatul Ulama….
In a region where much wrong is being perpetrated by many governments and non-state actors, Indonesia is doing something right. Now is a good time for the rest of us to take note and learn all that we can from Indonesia’s remarkable and multi-faceted example of “positive deviance.”
Inspired by the report’s finding that Nahdlatul Ulama spiritual leaders “represent the most theologically potent and operationally effective actors promoting religious liberty in the Islamic world today,” Dr. Shah — a Harvard-educated political scientist and devout Roman Catholic — joined senior NU leaders in establishing the Center for Shared Civilizational Values in 2021 and serves as its Director of Strategic Initiatives.
In February 2024, the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity — a joint initiative of the Holy See, Egypt’s al-Azhar University, and the Government of Abu Dhabi — presented the 2024 Zayed Award for Human Fraternity to Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah organizations for their “respective roles in the humanitarian field, as well as their peacebuilding efforts at the national, regional, and international levels.” Prior recipients of the Zayed Award for Human Fraternity include Pope Francis and Shaykh Ahmed al-Tayyeb; UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres; King Abdullah and Queen Rania of Jordan; and the Roman Catholic grassroots organization Sant’Egidio.
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