Pope and Imam of Southeast Asia's largest mosque jointly call for fight against violence and protection of the planet

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Pope Francis and the grand imam of Southeast Asia's largest mosque vowed Thursday to combat sectarian violence and protect the environment, and made a joint call for interfaith friendship and common cause at the heart of Francis' visit to Indonesia.

In an encounter full of symbolic meaning and personal touches, Francis traveled to Jakarta's iconic Istiqlal Mosque for an interfaith meeting with representatives of the six officially recognized religions in Indonesia: Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Catholicism and Protestantism.

There he and Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar stood at the ground-level entrance to the “Tunnel of Friendship,” an underpass that connects the mosque complex with the neighboring Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption.

Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population, sees the tunnel as a tangible sign of its commitment to religious freedom, which is enshrined in the constitution but is challenged by repeated cases of discrimination and violence against religious minorities.

From January 2021 to July 2024, there were at least 123 cases of intolerance, including rejection, closure or destruction of places of worship and physical attacks, Amnesty International said on the eve of Francis' visit.

As he approached the elevator to the tunnel, Francis said it was a powerful sign of how different religious traditions “play their role in helping everyone to walk through the tunnels of life with their eyes on the light.”

He encouraged all Indonesians, regardless of religion, “to seek God and contribute to building open societies based on mutual respect and love, capable of protecting against rigidity, fundamentalism and extremism, which are always dangerous and never justified.”

Francis traveled to Indonesia at the start of an 11-day trip through four countries in Asia and Oceania to encourage Indonesia to fight religiously motivated violence and to express the Catholic Church's commitment to greater fraternity.

The meeting at the mosque showed the personal side of this politics. Francis and Umar – the 87-year-old pope and the younger 65-year-old imam – showed a clear bond. As Francis drove away in his wheelchair, Umar leaned down and kissed Francis on the head. Then Francis took Umar's hand, kissed it and held it to his cheek.

The event began with a similarly moving moment when visually impaired Indonesian teenager Kayla Nur Syahwa recited verses from the Quran about tolerance among believers of different faiths.

Francis has made improving Catholic-Muslim relations a hallmark of his pontificate and has made priority trips to predominantly Muslim countries to promote this agenda.

During a visit to the Gulf in 2019, Francis and the imam of Al-Azhar, the 1,000-year-old site of Sunni learning, launched the Human Fraternity movement, which called for greater Christian-Muslim efforts to promote peace around the world. Most recently, in 2021, Francis traveled to Najaf, Iraq, to ​​visit the leading Shiite cleric, who delivered a message of peaceful coexistence.

The new initiative, called the “Istiqlal Declaration,” launched on Thursday, now becomes another pillar of Francis' interfaith initiative. It was signed by Francis and Umar at an official ceremony in the tent on the grounds of the Istiqlal Mosque. The other religious representatives at the meeting did not co-sign it, but were listed by the organizers as “companions.”

The document states that religion must never be abused to justify violence. Rather, it must be used to resolve conflicts and to protect and promote human dignity. It also calls for “decisive action” to protect the environment and its resources, blaming humans for the current climate crisis.

“Human exploitation of creation, our common home, has contributed to climate change and led to various destructive consequences such as natural disasters, global warming and unpredictable weather patterns,” it says. “This ongoing environmental crisis has become an obstacle to the harmonious coexistence of peoples.”

The fight against climate change is an important priority for the Argentine Jesuit Pope. In several encyclicals he emphasizes the moral dimension of caring for God's creation. For Indonesia, a tropical archipelago that stretches across the equator and is home to the world's third largest rainforest and a multitude of endangered animal and plant species, the climate issue is of existential importance.

Addressing the gathering, Umar, the Grand Imam, recalled that the Istiqlal Mosque was designed by a Christian architect and is used for a number of social and educational programs that benefit everyone, not just Muslims.

He called the mosque “a great house for humanity” and said the tunnel was a melting pot for people of different faiths. “We hope and uphold the principle that humanity is one, so everyone can enter and benefit,” he said.

The interfaith meeting was the highlight of Francis' visit to Indonesia, which will end on Thursday with a huge mass at Jakarta's stadium expected to draw 60,000 people. Catholics make up about three percent of Indonesia's 275 million population, but the country is home to the world's largest Catholic seminary and has long been a major source of priests and nuns for the Catholic Church.

Francis wants to strengthen their faith by becoming the third pope to visit Indonesia after Paul VI in 1970 and John Paul II in 1989.

On Friday, Francis will set off on the second leg of his trip to Papua New Guinea, one of the longest and furthest in papal history, which will also take him to East Timor and Singapore before it ends on September 13.