Pope Francis began 12-day trip to four countries with a visit to Indonesia Sept. 3-6
JAKARTA, Indonesia — The Christian call to share the Gospel is not about trying to win converts at all costs, but about living in a way that exudes Christian joy and always treats others with respect, Pope Francis told Churchworkers in Indonesia.
“Proclaiming the Gospel does not mean imposing our faith or placing it in opposition to that of others, but giving and sharing the joy of encountering Christ, always with great respect and fraternal affection for everyone,” the pope told bishops, priests, religious and catechists at a meeting Sept. 4.
Pope Francis asked Indonesian Catholics to be “prophets of communion in a world where the tendency to divide, impose and provoke each other seems to be constantly increasing.”
Pope Francis greeted Jesuit Cardinal Julius Riyadi Darmaatmadja, archbishop emeritus of Jakarta, during a meeting with Jesuits at the apostolic nunciature in Jakarta, Indondesia, Sept. 4.
Welcoming Pope Francis to Jakarta’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, Bishop Antonius Subianto Bunyamin of Bandung, president of the Indonesian bishops’ conference, told him the bishops hope his visit will prompt Catholics to “increasingly seek an encounter with God that manifests the joy of the Gospel, creates a culture of encounter in which we see others as a brother or sister, and restores the integrity of creation by listening to the cry of the poor and of the earth, our common home.”
In his speech to the group, Pope Francis focused on the theme the bishops chose for his visit: “Faith — Fraternity — Compassion.”
Those Christian values, he said, can coincide easily with “Pancasila,” Indonesia’s founding philosophy that emphasizes five principles: belief in one God, a just and civilized citizenry, unity, democracy and social justice.
Indonesia has about 276 million people and about 87% of them are Muslim, according to government statistics. The Vatican estimates that 3% of the population is Catholic, which equates to about 8.3 million people.
Father Pilifur Junianto, a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, traveled from Batam to meet the pope. He said Catholics in Indonesia practice “silaturahmi,” which “means we encounter others — other religions, other cultures. We visit each other on our feast days,” especially when members of the same family or close neighbors belong to different religions.
“As Catholics, we are focused on its meaning as universal — we can accept others,” he said. “Our main service as Catholics is education — schools and universities. We can influence all our students,” including many who are not Catholic. “That way we can help implement ‘Pancasila.’”
Brother Ivan, a member of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mercy, who does not use his last name, said it was overwhelming to be in the cathedral with Pope Francis, who is “very humble and an amazing pope.”
Although for the most part, hundreds of women religious sat on one side of the church while priests and brothers sat on the other, Brother Ivan sat with the Sisters of Our Lady of Amersfoort who run the school where he teaches. The sisters declined an interview request as they waited for vespers to begin.
After a woman and a young man gave brief testimonies about their ministries as catechists, Pope Francis told the crowd that catechists have the most important role in the Church, followed by religious sisters, then priests and bishops. It was just one of many off-the-cuff comments the 87-year-old pope made during the meeting.
Pope Francis told the Churchworkers that Indonesia’s natural beauty should remind people that God gives human beings all good things. “There is not an inch of the marvelous Indonesian territory, nor a moment in the lives of its millions of inhabitants that is not a gift from God, a sign of his gratuitous and everlasting love as Father.”
The pope’s schedule includes an interreligious meeting at Southeast Asia’s largest mosque as well as opportunities to meet with the nation’s Catholics and to visit some of the social and charitable works they carry out in Jesus’ name.
In Indonesia, like the three other island-nations on the trip — Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore — care for the environment is also expected to be a key theme, Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, told reporters Aug. 30. In fact, Indonesia is in the process of building a new capital city, Nusantara, because Jakarta is sinking below sea level from the excessive withdrawal and use of groundwater to meet the needs of its growing population.
