by Siktus Harson, UCAN
Indonesia’s Church leaders have been criticised giving only lip service to Pope Francis’s monumental encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’.
Since the launch of the Indonesian translation six years ago [translated by Franciscan Father Martin Harun] there have been sporadic discussions and actions spurred by the document, but no action plan at the national level.
Indonesia’s Catholics were confused with the latest inconsistencies in the actions taken by several Church leaders, despite the encyclical having been in play People have expected a clear policy or unified response in the face of rising environmental degradation.
Indeed, many individual priests, nuns and laypeople are committed to environmental conservation, but somehow there is an urgent need for the Church as a community to respond to the pope’s appeal to make a bigger impact.
What a disgrace that some bishops—despite recognising the importance of the papal document—ignore its principles when it comes to dealing with corporations or government policies.
While bishops have absolute authority over their respective ecclesiastical territories, they must have a unified response to address pressing issues such as environmental destruction that affects not only people in certain zones but the entire archipelago— even globally.
Environmental issues are signs of the times that Church leaders—locally and globally—have to respond to, collectively. Failure to acknowledge them will be catastrophic.
Ironically, the leaders of the Church in Indonesia do not stand on common ground when it comes to dealing with issues that affect land or forests, causing confusion among followers.
It was a joyful moment for Christians when Catholic priests in the Diocese of Manokwari-Sorong in Papua cast their support behind Johny Kamuru, head of the Sorong district in West Papua, who is engaged in a legal battle with palm oil firms.
The official is being sued by three of four palm oil giants whose business licenses he annulled, suspending their operations covering 100,000 hectares of land owned by indigenous communities. He accused them of violating the rules, hence the land must be returned to the tribal people.
The priests said their action was part of the Church’s prophetic mission, and to ground the message of Laudato Si’—caring for mother earth as humanity’s common home—on Papuan soil.
Their action was crucial to boosing the morale of the district leader—and other environmental activists—who could be doomed through political maneuvers.
Despite the archbishop saying that the money was needed to fund Church services and the construction of a seminary, Catholics called it a scandalous conspiracy with a company that has caused so much suffering among Papuans.
Moreover, many Catholics saw a better side of the Church through such prophetic witness and hoped for more collective efforts from within it to save the earth.
However, the move was at odds with the initiative of Archbishop Petrus Canisius Mandagi of Merauke early this year. The archbishop rapped by Catholics for signing a memorandum of understanding with palm oil firm, PT Tunas Sawa Erma, a subsidiary of Korindo Group, a Korean-Indonesian joint venture.
The memorandum ensures the company’s financial support for the archdiocese to the tune of about 2.4 billion rupiah [$1.29 million] in three years, wtih an additional operating cost of around 1 billion rupiah [$540.00].
Catholics in Papua, particularly in the archdiocese, fear this would drive further destruction of their forests. Greenpeace Indonesia reported last year that one of Korindo’s subsidiaries, Dongin Prabhawa, had destroyed 57,000 hectares of Papua’s rainforest [Sunday Examiner, 29 November 2020].
Despite the archbishop saying that the money was needed to fund Church services and the construction of a seminary, Catholics called it a scandalous conspiracy with a company that has caused so much suffering among Papuans.
Most recently, environmental and rights activists attacked the bishop and priests of Ruteng Diocese in Catholic-majority Flores for signing a controversial memorandum of understanding with local authorities on the development of integrated tourism projects in Labuan Bajo that could result in deforestation
They were also slammed for having no words to stop the “Jurassic Park” project that could endanger the Komodo dragons, despite a warning from UNESCO [Sunday Examiner, March 21]. Activists, mostly Catholics, said that defending Creation in the face of unjust policies is the responsibility of the Church and that it is turning a blind eye to policies that can jeopardise the environment by bowing to the authorities.
The different reactions by Church leaders to projects that sacrifice local people and the environment is both embarrassing and raises concerns as to whether Indonesian Church leaders have understood Pope Francis’s message.
Is it possible that they are ignoring it? Hopefully not, but they have plenty of time to fix their failure in the next few years.
According to a 2019 Forest Watch Indonesia report, Indonesia lost 1.4 million hectares of forest each year between 2013 and 2017 or roughly seven million hectares in just five years.
The Church in Indonesia must cooperate and develop unified measures, step up from small-scale awareness drives to national campaigns, stand rock-solid against forest and land destruction. Church leaders and the laity are encouraged to be proactive in the planning and execution of concrete actions to save the environment from the damage being done.
