On his tour, Pope Francis promoted peace, religious harmony, and Catholicism’s engagement with Islam, particularly in Indonesia.
His visit showcased his focus on global peripheries and the Church’s need to navigate complex political and interreligious issues in today’s world.
Pope Francis is arguably at his best when far from Rome.
His apostolic trips to the Middle East and the Far East are prime examples, and the exhausting September journey to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore is no exception.
Promoting interreligious dialogue in Indonesia
In Indonesia, where Christianity is a minority, Pope Francis spoke about the importance of working for peace and interreligious coexistence, particularly with Islam, in the “Istiqlal Declaration” signed on September 5.
He repeated his vision of a dialogical Christianity that rejects religious extremism and fundamentalism.
He encouraged the inculturation of the faith, making clear that the post-Vatican II inculturation of liturgy, theology, and catechesis is here to stay and that there is no prospect of a re-Latinisation or a new Romanisation of global Catholicism.
Francis walks in the footsteps of St. John Paul II, updating and bringing to the antipodes the “spirit of Assisi” (the first World Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi, Italy, on October 27, 1986, and called by the Polish pope), which is still seen by some traditionalist Catholics as a sacrilege.
Francis traveled to Asia and Oceania not to announce new policies or reshape local churches but to bring the Pope’s presence closer to those Christians and their fellow citizens, allowing lived Catholicism to flourish while also teaching something to the global Church.
He has done all this in a moving display of joy, tenderness, and simplicity, which also sends a powerful message to those who identify Catholicism with an outburst of grievances against modern culture and secularisation, against the institutional Church, and against fellow Catholics on the other side of the ideological barricades.
A journey to the peripheries
This trip is the quintessential embodiment of Francis’ closeness to the peripheries. It is the longest and farthest from Rome for Francis.
It is a trip that once again redefines the Catholic imagination of the world map in the third millennium: the north-south and east-west relations and where the center of the world and the Church are today in this post-European global order.
Papua New Guinea is 19,047 kilometers away from the Vatican. It is closer to New Delhi, Beijing, and Tokyo than a trip to Los Angeles and New York.
And yet, in some sense, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore represent the closest places Francis could go to find an experience of the Church that he has in mind.
There are three issues that this trip keeps hidden or does not show but are at the heart of the crisis of Catholicism today.
The challenge of Catholicism in a post-European world
The first element is political.
By beginning this trip with Indonesia, it carries an echo of the new “Non-Aligned Movement”.
During the Cold War, countries of the developing world abstained from allying with either of the two superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) and instead joined together in support of national self-determination against all forms of colonialism and imperialism.
The foundational moment was the 1955 conference in Bandung, Indonesia.
This was viewed with sympathy by some Catholics in Europe and the West, foreshadowing the shifts brought about by Vatican II and the Popes since John XXIII in repositioning the Holy See and Catholicism away from a political and ideological identification with the West.
“Francis’ papacy is still longing for a third option between the United States and Russia—one that rejects both the neoliberal, American-dominated world order and the illiberal ethno-nationalism and authoritarian regimes that have taken hold in many countries.”
Today, Francis’ papacy is still longing for a third option between the United States and Russia — one that rejects both the neoliberal, American-dominated world order and the illiberal ethno-nationalism and authoritarian regimes that have taken hold in many countries, some still formally part of what remains of the Non-Aligned Movement.
For example, the Republic of Belarus, Putin’s Russian neighbor and staunchest ally, has been a member of the Non-Aligned Movement since 1998.
The 19th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement was held this past January in Kampala, and the movement is currently chaired by Uganda, a country with one of the harshest anti-gay laws in its criminal code.
What the Non-Aligned Movement has become says something about where the Vatican is (and isn’t) on today’s ideological world map and the lack or scarcity of viable political interlocutors for the Holy See.
Finding Comfort in Asia-Oceania’s non-aligned Catholics
The second element is ecclesial.
This September trip to Asia and Oceania brought the Pope as far as possible from the historical borders of the Roman Empire (in all its possible dispensations, from Augustus to the Holy Roman Empire until Napoleon), from Washington D.C., and from the international liberal order once dominated by the West.
But Asia and Oceania also provide an ecclesial environment that is for Francis much more comfortable than the one in Europe and the West today.
Francis’ visits to these peripheries signal his preference for the non-aligned Catholics in our intra-ecclesial cold wars.
They are those who do not align with a particular agenda on issues such as the diaconate for women, the different theories of synodality, the policies to fight clericalism and the abuse crisis.
(This is despite the case of Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, a hero of the independence movement in his native East Timor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, whom Pope Francis indirectly acknowledged on September 9).
“Francis’ visits to these peripheries signal his preference for the non-aligned Catholics in our intra-ecclesial cold wars — those who do not align with a particular agenda on issues.”
Catholics in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore differ from the images of Catholicism in mainstream media in the West. But they are Francis’ people, more than the activists for Church reform, feminist theologians, or, for that matter, most academic theologians.
And yet, the issues that are not visible in this trip will continue to be central issues for Catholicism in the Western world and, in the not-so-distant future, also in these Churches of the peripheries.
Interreligious dialogue in the context of global tensions
The third element is interreligious, and it has to do with Islam and Judaism.
The Istiqlal Mosque in Indonesia sits across from Jakarta’s cathedral, linked by a “tunnel of friendship” as a symbol of religious fraternity. Francis visited the tunnel before the meeting, offering blessings and signing a section of it.
On that September 5, it was hard not to think about other tunnels that tragically connect and divide today, like the tunnels of Gaza, where Israeli hostages, taken on October 7, 2023, were held and murdered by Hamas.
“Forging a new relationship with Islam requires confronting the intentionally unaddressed issues of the pre-Francis era, from the Vatican II declaration Nostra Aetate onwards: political and religious Zionism, the land and state of Israel.”
As delicate as the relations between Christians and Muslims are in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, the immediate challenge today lies in dealing with Islam and Judaism in the Middle East.
Francis’ pontificate is trying to do for the relationship between the Church and Islam what St. John Paul II did for the relationship with Judaism.
The challenge is that forging a new relationship with Islam requires confronting the intentionally unaddressed issues of the pre-Francis era, from the Vatican II declaration Nostra Aetate onwards: political and religious Zionism, the land and state of Israel.
The interfaith dialogue led by the Vatican has become incredibly more difficult since Hamas’ terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, and Israel’s indiscriminate war against Gaza.
Interreligious dialogue is key to the credibility of Catholics and Christians in many parts of the world where they are a small minority.
The situation in Israel and the Middle East threatens not only world peace but also the survival of minority Churches, which often do not appear on social media, in Catholic pundits’ columns, and the agendas of “cultural Christians” in European and Western politics.
This will likely be a major part of the agenda for the next conclave that elects Francis’ successor. Whenever it happens, it will take place in the Vatican, 19,047 kilometers away from Papua New Guinea.
- First published in La Croix
- Massimo Faggioli is an Italian academic, Church historian, professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, columnist for La Croix International, and contributing writer to Commonweal.