Pope packs first day in Indonesia with visits to president, clergy

Pope Francis is welcomed by Indonesia’s Minister for Religious Affairs Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, center, soon after landing at Jakarta’s International airport Soekarno Hatta, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024. Pope Francis arrived in Indonesia on Tuesday at the start of the longest trip of his pontificate, hoping to encourage its Catholic community and celebrate the tradition of interfaith harmony in a country with the world’s largest Muslim population. (AP Photo)

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Pope Francis is opening his visit to Indonesia with a packed first day Wednesday, meeting political and religious leaders and setting a rigorous pace for an 11-day, four-nation trip through tropical Asia and Oceania that will test his stamina and health.

Francis’ first order of business was a meeting at the presidential palace with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, followed by his opening remarks before government authorities and the diplomatic corps. There, Francis is expected to press his hopes for continued interfaith harmony in a country with a tiny Catholic minority and the world’s largest Muslim population.

In the afternoon, Francis meets with Indonesian clergy and nuns in Jakarta’s Our Lady of the Assumption Cathedral for his traditional pep talk to the local church. Indonesia is home to the world’s largest Catholic seminary and has long been a top source of priests and nuns for the Catholic Church, though their numbers today are not keeping pace with the growth in the overall Catholic population.

Francis’ final appointment for the day was an encounter with schoolchildren who participate in after-school programs run by a foundation he has backed since his days as an Argentine archbishop.

Francis arrived in Jakarta on Tuesday to kick off the longest, farthest and most difficult trip of his pontificate given his myriad health problems. At 87, he uses a wheelchair, has regular bouts of bronchitis and has had multiple surgeries for intestinal problems.

By the trip’s end on Sept. 13, Francis will have flown 32,814 kilometers (20,390 miles) to visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, one of the longest papal trips ever, both in terms of days on the road and distances traveled.

Francis appeared in good form and spirits at the start of the trip, visiting with journalists in the back of the papal plane on the overnight flight from Rome and greeting each one. Often when his knees are bothering him, he’ll sit and have the journalists come greet him on the plane, but he spent a half-hour walking up and down the aisles this time.

In Indonesia, Francis will be seeking to support the Catholic community, which only makes up 3% of the population of some 275 million, while seeking to encourage greater ties with the country that is home to the largest Muslim population.

The highlight of Francis’ first stop will be his participation Thursday in an interfaith meeting in Jakarta’s iconic Istiqlal mosque with representatives of the six religions that are officially recognized in Indonesia: Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Catholicism and Protestantism.

The mosque, the largest in Southeast Asia, sits across a piazza from the capital’s main Catholic cathedral and the two are so close to each another that the Muslim call to prayer can be heard during Mass. They are linked by an underground “Tunnel of Friendship” that acts as a symbolic bridge between the faiths.

While Francis will want to highlight Indonesia’s tradition of religious tolerance, the country’s image as a moderate Muslim nation has been undermined by flare-ups of intolerance. 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 at least 20 people.

As Francis arrived, Amnesty International said it hoped his visit would encourage an end to acts of intolerance and discrimination against minority groups and truly promote a respect for religious freedom that is enshrined in the country’s constitution.

In a statement, Amnesty noted that from January 2021 to July 2024, there were at least 123 cases of intolerance, including rejection, closure or destruction of places of worship, and physical attacks. The perpetrators allegedly came from various backgrounds, including government officials, residents, and community organizations.

“The pope’s visit has an important role to play in encouraging Indonesia to end intolerance and discrimination against all minority groups. Freedom of religion is a right protected by the Indonesian constitution,” said Usman Hamid, executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia.

Asia, along with Africa, has long been seen as the future of the Catholic Church, both in terms of the number of baptized faithful and the number of men and women who decide to become priests or nuns. In Asia, the numbers are growing whereas longtime Catholic bastions such as Europe and the Americas have been seeing a long-term contraction both in the number of Catholics and those who enter religious life.

While Indonesia can by no means compete with overwhelmingly Catholic Philippines or India in terms of the overall number of baptized Catholics or priests, the number of men studying to become priests here is continuing to grow whereas the number of seminarians in Asia overall has started to level off or even decline in the last few years.

According to Vatican statistics as of Dec. 31, 2022, the last year for which data is available, there were 5,903 Catholic priests in Indonesia for a population of 8.29 million Catholics. While the number of seminarians studying for the priesthood in Asia has declined since 2017, including in the Philippines and India, Indonesia continued to add them, with were 4,024 seminarians in 2022 compared to 3,777 in 2017.