Build bridges like tunnels of fraternity: Pope

Asad Mirza

(Asad Mirza is a New Delhi-based senior commentator

on international and strategic affairs, an interfaith practitioner, and a media consultant.)

Pope Francis arrived in Muslim-majority Indonesia on Tuesday, kicking off a four-nation tour of the Asia-Pacific, the longest and farthest of the 87-year-old’s papacy.

The head of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics touched down in the capital, Jakarta, for a three-day visit devoted to inter-religious ties. From Indonesia onwards, he travels to Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore. In Jakarta, Pope visited the city’s famed Istiqlal Mosque, where he and Muslim leaders outlined their vision for a moderate and tolerant society and called for an end to violent extremism.

Speaking at the underground “Tunnel of Fraternity,” which connects the mosque to the Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption across the street, Pope Francis called the tunnel “a place of dialogue and encounter.”

While tunnels are often thought of as dark places, “Here it is different, for everything is illuminated,” he said, telling the interreligious leaders present that “you are the light that illuminates it.” Religious communities must respond to various global challenges with friendship, he said, saying that “by welcoming others and respecting their identity, fraternity urges them on a common path travelled in friendship and leading towards the light.”

Interfaith Dialogue

So far, dialogue with Islam and the push for tolerance have been key talking points in Indonesia, which, with a population of around 275 million, is roughly 87 percent Muslim, making it the largest Muslim country in the world. In a speech on Wednesday, Pope Francis urged the political leaders to fight extremism and foster interreligious tolerance and social development. Likewise, he urged the church’s pastors in a subsequent meeting to be open-minded and inclusive. Francis was welcomed to the mosque by its Grand Imam, Nasaruddin Umar, who called it “a joy.” Umar noted that the mosque, founded in 1961, can host up to 2,50,000 worshippers and was designed by a Christian architect named Friedrich Silaban, who won a design competition.

Due to its vast size, Istiqlal is the largest mosque in Asia and the third largest in the world after Makkah and Madina. Umar said, “It is not only a house of worship for Muslims, but also a great home for humanity,” voicing his belief that “humanity is one, and so anyone can enter and benefit from the Istiqlal Mosque.”

“Anyone is welcome to seek the good of humanity through this mosque,” he said, noting that it regularly hosts interreligious and intercultural events, as well as diplomatic activities, and it also provides education from preschool to secondary school, and has facilities for sports and the arts, among other things.

Umar said it also has female cadre programmes both the master’s and doctoral levels in partnership with the University of Qur’an Science in Jakarta and various universities in Egypt, Morocco, and the United States. “It is our specific goal and expectation that alumni of Ulama Cadre become moderate and internationally recognised leaders,” he said.

“This mosque also seeks to promote religious tolerance and moderation in Indonesia,” he said, calling the Tunnel of Fraternity linking it to the Catholic cathedral “proof of the role of the Istiqlal Mosque as a melting pot, especially for the citizens of the pluralistic nation of Indonesia, who adhere to the maxim Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, meaning “Unity in diversity.”.

Pope Francis said the fact that the mosque was designed by a Christian illustrates the fact that “the mosque, like other places of worship, are spaces of dialogue, mutual respect, and harmonious coexistence between religions and different spiritual sensibilities.” This respect must be cultivated every day, “so that religious experiences may be reference points for a fraternal and peaceful society and never reasons for close-mindedness or confrontation,” he said. He condemned extremism, saying the path of encounter is essential. Pope Francis then offered two suggestions he said would be helpful in continuing to build unity and harmony in Indonesia and in society at large. His first suggestion was to “always look deeply” at the other, “because only in this way can we find what unites despite our differences.”

Secondly, the visible aspects of religion, the rites and rituals, are important and must be preserved, he said, but he also said that what is underneath, running underground like a tunnel, “is the one root common to all religious sensitivities: the quest for an encounter with the divine, the thirst for the infinite.”

Why isn’t India on the pope’s Asia itinerary?

Meanwhile, questions are being asked: why did the Pope miss India on this tour of the Asia-Pacific? India has more Catholics than Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Singapore combined. So why wasn’t the subcontinent on the itinerary for Pope Francis’ trip to Asia and Oceania? That question is currently being asked by Catholics in India, who number around 20 million.

In 2021, PM Modi announced he had invited Pope Francis to visit India following “a very warm” private audience at the Vatican. Modi renewed the invitation when he met with the pope in June this year, on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy.

Yet there is still no sign of a papal visit. Why? Indian commentators suggest Modi’s invitations aren’t as straightforward as they might seem. Writing for ucanews.com in June, Nirendra Dev said that any papal invitation would need to be endorsed by the RSS. “The parent body of India’s ruling party does not approve of the pope’s presence on Indian soil, fearing it may rekindle and boost the conversion of Hindus to Christianity,” he noted. According to the charity Open Doors, India is the 11th worst country in which to be a Christian. A total of 161 incidents of discrimination and persecution against Christians were recorded in the first 75 days of 2024 alone. A papal visit would have offered hope to an embattled religious minority, besides offering a chance to the papal office to raise concerns about the safety of religious minorities in today’s India.

Verghese V. Joseph, editor-in-chief of indiancatholicmatters.org, agreed that fear of a Hindu nationalist backlash was an important factor. But he also blamed the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), a body representing the country’s Latin, Syro-Malabar, and Syro-Malankara Catholics. “The CBCI’s inability to persuade the Indian government to invite the pope underscores a broader trend of diminishing influence,” he argued in a post on September 3.

There is no indication that either Pope Francis or Vatican officials are hesitant about an India visit. Rather, the hold-up seems to be in India—in the wider circles around Modi, who view the papacy with historically rooted suspicion. Overcoming that resistance may be beyond the current powers of India’s bishops, if they are as marginal as Joseph suggests.

Earlier this year, PM Modi hinted that India could host the pope in 2025. But local Catholics will believe it when they see it; in the meantime, it would be better if Indian ultra-nationalists could follow Pope’s advice on tolerance and coexistence by putting them into practice.