JAKARTA (UCAN): A possible visit to Indonesia by Pope Francis this year has sparked hope for both Catholics and Muslims in the world’s largest Muslim country.
Yahya Cholil Staquf, secretary-general of Nahdlatul Ulama, the country’s largest Islamic organisation, told the Catholic News Agency following a meeting with the pope said that he planned to visit Indonesia and neighbouring Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea in September.
Staquf met with the pope on January 15 while visiting Rome for a meeting of the Abrahamic Faiths Initiative, which gathered Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders to discuss the promotion of peace and fraternity.
Teuku Faizasyah, a spokesperson for Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, told media that there is as yet no confirmation from the Vatican of a visit. He said that as part of the process of such a trip the president, Joko Widodo, recently wrote to extend an official invitation to the pope.
Meanwhile, Ignatius Suharyo Cardinal Hardjoatmodjo of Jakarta, chairperson of the Indonesian Bishops’ Conference, was reluctant to comment on the possible visit.
“Let us wait until there is a confirmation from both the Indonesian government and the Vatican. I will only give further comments after there is an official announcement,” he said on January 20.
“I surely hope that the pope’s visit will come true. Catholics in Indonesia should be ready to welcome him,” Yulius Setiarto, secretary of the Jakarta-based Indonesian Catholic Society Forum, said.
“I hope Pope Francis will also bring the message of peace as stipulated in the Abu Dhabi document and will make Indonesia one of the places where the document can be widely introduced,” he added.
The Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together was signed on February 4 last year by Pope Francis and the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
One part of the document says that “the pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in his wisdom, through which he created human beings.”
Dewi Kartika Maharani Praswida, a Muslim woman who met Pope Francis at the Vatican last year, said she has waited for the pope to visit Indonesia for several years.
“For me, Pope Francis is not only a leader of Catholics but also a pluralism figure who never feels tired of ‘provoking’ human beings to love peace and to become agents of peace,” she said.
She regards the pope as “a role model” of building a life with love. “I do expect his visit to Indonesia,” she said.
Indonesia’s 229 million Muslims make up more than 12 per cent of the global Muslim population.
Indonesia has 24 million Christians including seven million Catholics. Pope St. Paul VI visited the country in 1970, while Pope St. John Paul II travelled there in 1989.
Timor-Leste, which gained independence from Indonesia in 1999, is a tiny country of one million people, 98 per cent of whom are Catholic.
Nearly all Papua New Guinea’s nine million people are Christians and 26 per cent are Catholic. Pope St. John Paul II visited the country in 1984.
Pope Francis has long expressed an interest in visiting Indonesia and is also keen to visit Iraq this year. He recently made successful visits to Thailand and Japan
