Pope urges Indonesian clergy, religious to foster openness, inclusion

JAKARTA – In a country distinguished by its ethnic diversity and where social difficulties such as poverty and corruption are a daily reality, Pope Francis stressed the importance for the Church’s pastors and evangelists of being openminded and prioritizing the marginalized.

Speaking to bishops, priests, religious, seminarians and catechists, the pope said the motto of his visit to Indonesia, “faith, fraternity, compassion,” expresses both “your journey as a Church and your character as a people, who are ethnically and culturally diverse.”

He met the bishop and clergy, who serve Indonesia’s roughly 8.3 million Catholics, in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Jakarta.

“At the same time, you are characterized by an innate striving for unity and peaceful coexistence,” he said.

Pope Francis is in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, as part of a broader Sept. 2-13 visit to southeast Asia and Oceania.

In a meeting with Indonesian civil authorities and diplomats earlier that day, Francis praised the country’s rich cultural and ethnic diversity, and urged political leaders to foster tolerance and to fight extremism.

In a greeting to Pope Francis at his meeting with clergy, Bishop Antonius Subianto Bunjamin of Bandung and President of the Indonesia Bishops’ Conference (KWI) said the pontiff’s presence “brings hope not only for the Indonesian Catholic community…but also for the diverse Indonesian nation consisting of approximately 1,300 ethnic groups and peoples.”

Indonesia has 37 Dioceses and 1 Military Ordinariate, he said, and voiced hope that the pope’s presence in the country would “strengthen our faith to live according to God’s commands and the Church’s teachings in order to build that true fraternity, which is manifested through an attitude of compassion, especially towards those on the peripheries of society.”

Pope Francis prior to his speech heard four testimonies from a priest, a religious sister, and two catechists.

Father Maxi Un Bria, chairman of the Indonesian Federation of Diocesan Priests (UNINDO), called the pope’s presence a “blessing” for the church’s pastors as they seek “to walk hand-in-hand, together serving the faithful of all the local churches in Indonesia.”

Sister Rina Rosalina, a Poor Clare Missionary of the Most Holy Sacrament, stressed the need to evangelize not only in local communities, but in the world, and asked for better translations of papal documents and texts.

“Despite the efforts of our Bishops, translations can take a long time and even when they are completed, approval for those translations take their time in Rome. We are still waiting to be able to read in our native bahasa Indonesia a number of your teachings,” she said.

Bahasa Indonesia is the Austronesian language and is the official language of Indonesia.

“We bring this to your attention, Holy Father, so that we in this distant country can be more perfectly united and in harmony with the universal Church, walking together in synodality,” Rosalina said.

Agnes Natalia, teacher at Saint Ursula Elementary School in Jakarta; catechist at Saint Mary the Virgin Queen Parish, highlighted the church’s ministry to the poor and disabled, while Nikolas Wijaya, a Catholic religion teacher at Regina Pacis Senior High School in Bogor and member of the Catechetical Commission in the Diocese of Bogor, stressed the need to build “bridges” in society.

“As catechists, we can be the bridges that unite many people, inspiring them too to build other bridges, so that through the various bridges of dialogue, we can always present the face of Christ with faith, fraternity and compassion,” he said.

In his remarks, Pope Francis underlined the importance of living in harmony with creation, and with one another, especially the poor and needy.

He stressed the need for “a personal and communal lifestyle marked by respect, civility and humanity, together with sobriety and Franciscan charity.”

Reflecting on the meaning of human fraternity, he quoted Polish poet Wisława Szymborska, saying that to be brothers and sisters means loving while recognizing one another “as different as two drops of water.”

“No two drops of water are alike, nor are two brothers or sisters, not even twins are completely identical. Living out fraternity, then, means welcoming each other, recognizing each other as equal in diversity,” he said.

The Catholic Church in Indonesia must be characterized by an attitude of openness at the cultural, ethnic, social and religious levels, he said.

Francis focused on the Church’s role of evangelization, saying that to bear witness to the Gospel “does not mean imposing our faith or placing it in opposition to that of others,” but rather involves sharing the joy of knowing Christ, “always with great respect and fraternal affection for everyone.”

“I invite you always to keep yourselves open and friendly to all – ‘hand-in-hand,’ as Father Maxi said – prophets of communion, in a world where the tendency to divide, impose and provoke each other seems to be constantly increasing,” he said.

He echoed Rosalina’s desire to have Church and magisterial texts more readily available in local the local language, saying, “it is hoped that not only the texts of the word of God but also the teachings of the Church will be translated into Bahasa Indonesia in order to make them accessible to as many people as possible.”

Turning to Wijaya’s image of catechists serving as a bridge between communities, the pope said the mission of a catechist is to unite, and urged pastors to build “’bridges of the heart’ uniting all the islands, and even more so of millions of such ‘bridges’ uniting all the people who live there!”

He also stressed the importance of compassion, saying it does not simply consist of giving money to the poor while “looking down on them from the ‘tower’ of our own security and success.”

“On the contrary, it consists in drawing us close to one another, removing everything that can prevent us from stooping down to touch those on the ground, lifting them up and giving them hope,” he said.

Compassion, Pope Francis said, means embracing the needy, supporting them, and pushing for justice, while also “widening the ‘net’ and the boundaries to create a great expansive dynamism of charity.”

Francis noted that some are afraid to be compassionate because they interpret it as weakness, preferring “the shrewdness of those who serve their own interests by keeping their distance from everyone, by not letting themselves be ‘touched’ by anything or anyone, thus thinking they are more lucid and free in achieving their goals.”

“This is an incorrect way of looking at reality,” he said, saying, “What keeps the world going is not the calculations of self-interest, which generally end up destroying creation and dividing communities, but offering charity to others.”

Compassion, he said, “does not cloud the true vision of life. On the contrary, it makes us see things better, in the light of love.”

He quoted a speech by Pope John Paul II during his 1989 visit, inviting those who hear the psalm verse, “let the many islands rejoice,” to put it into practice by “bearing witness to the joy of the Resurrection and in giving your life so that even the most distant islands may ‘rejoice’ at hearing the Gospel, of which you are authentic preachers, teachers and witnesses.”

Pope Francis closed his address thanking Indonesian clergy and religious for their work, and encouraging them “to continue your mission by being strong in faith, open to all in fraternity and close to one another in compassion.”