JAKARTA: Pope Francis and the grand imam of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque vowed Thursday to fight religiously inspired violence and protect the environment, issuing a joint call for interfaith friendship and common cause at the heart of Francis’ visit to Indonesia.
In an encounter rich with symbolic meaning and personal touches, Francis traveled to Jakarta’s iconic Istiqlal Mosque for an interreligious gathering with representatives of the six religions that are officially recognized in Indonesia: Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Catholicism and Protestantism.
There, he and the grand imam, Nasaruddin Umar, stood at the ground-level entrance to the “Tunnel of Friendship,” an underpass which connects the mosque compound with the neighboring Catholic cathedral, Our Lady of the Assumption.
Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, has held out the tunnel as a tangible sign of its commitment to religious freedom, which is enshrined in the constitution but has been challenged by repeated instances of discrimination and violence against religious minorities.
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, Amnesty International noted on the eve of Francis’ visit.
Approaching the elevator to the tunnel, Francis said it was a potent sign of how different religious traditions “have a role to play in helping everyone pass through the tunnels of life with our eyes turned toward the light.”
He encouraged all Indonesians of every religious tradition to “walk in search of God and contribute to building open societies, founded on reciprocal respect and mutual love, capable of protecting against rigidity, fundamentalism and extremism, which are always dangerous and never justifiable.”
Francis traveled to Indonesia, at the start of an 11-day, four-nation trip to Asia and Oceania, to encourage Indonesia to combat religiously inspired violence and pledge the Catholic Church’s commitment to greater fraternity.
The meeting at the mosque showed the personal side of that policy, with Francis and Umar — the 87-year-old pope and the more youthful 65-year-old imam — showing a clear affinity for one another. As Francis was leaving in his wheelchair, Umar bent down and kissed Francis on the head. Francis then grasped Umar’s hand, kissed it and held it to his cheek.
The event began with a similarly moving moment, as a visually impaired Indonesian teenage girl, Kayla Nur Syahwa, chanted verses from the Qur’an about tolerance among believers of different faiths.
Francis has made improving Catholic-Muslim ties a hallmark of his papacy and has prioritized travel to majority Muslim nations to further the agenda.
During a 2019 visit to the Gulf, Francis and the imam of Al-Azhar, the 1,000-year-old seat of Sunni learning, launched a “Human Fraternity” movement calling for greater Christian-Muslim efforts to promote peace around the world. More recently, Francis traveled to Najaf, Iraq, in 2021 to visit the top Shiite cleric, who delivered a message of peaceful coexistence.
The new initiative launched Thursday, called “The Istiqlal Declaration,” now becomes another pillar of Francis’ interfaith push. It was signed by Francis and Umar at a formal ceremony in the tent on the Istiqlal mosque compound. The other religious representatives at the encounter didn’t co-sign it but were listed by organizers as having “accompanied” it.
The document said religion should never be abused to justify violence, but should instead be used to resolve conflicts and protect and promote human dignity. It also called for “decisive action” to protect the environment and its resources, blaming man-made actions for the current climate crisis.
“The human exploitation of creation, our common home, has contributed to climate change, leading to various destructive consequences such as natural disasters, global warming and unpredictable weather patterns,” it read. “This ongoing environmental crisis has become an obstacle to the harmonious coexistence of peoples.”
Fighting climate change has been an important priority for the Argentine Jesuit pope, who has issued encyclicals insisting on the moral dimension of caring for God’s creation. The climate issue is of existential importance to Indonesia, a tropical archipelago stretching across the equator and home to the world’s third-largest rainforest and a variety of endangered wildlife and plants.
Umar, the grand imam, recalled in his remarks to the gathering that the Istiqlal mosque was designed by a Christian architect and is used for a variety of social and educational programs that benefit everyone, not just Muslims.
Calling the mosque “a big house for humanity,” he said the tunnel was a melting pot for people of different faiths. “We hope and have the principle that humanity is one, so anyone can enter and benefit,” he said.
The interfaith gathering was the highlight of Francis’ visit to Indonesia, which concludes later Thursday with a giant Mass in Jakarta’s stadium expected to draw some 60,000 people. Catholics represent about 3 percent of Indonesia’s population of 275 million, but the country is home to the world’s largest Catholic seminary and has long been a top source of priests and nuns for the Catholic Church.
Francis is seeking to encourage their faith by becoming the third pope to visit Indonesia, after Paul VI in 1970 and John Paul II in 1989.
On Friday, Francis heads to Papua New Guinea for the second leg of his trip, one of the longest and farthest in papal history, which will also take him to East Timor and Singapore before it ends Sept. 13.
