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.

The claim is that the pope has not sufficiently condemned the crimes of Hamas and, furthermore, that he has created a symmetry between Hamas and Israel in his comments.

If that were not enough, apart from the pope, the church officials charged with dialogue with the Jewish people—first and foremost among them Cardinal Kurt Koch, head of the church's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews— have chosen thunderous silence, not responding at all to the horrific events that took place in Israel.

The Jewish expectation was that as the fruit of the blessed process of dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, the church and its leader would stand by our side in our fight against the terrorism of Hamas.

It is not my interest here to enter into a debate with the criticism that is being leveled, and there might or might not be some truth in it.

Rather, I seek to present the issue within a broader context, that of interreligious dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people.

Interreligious dialogue, by its very nature, is expressed through formal institutions, whether they be those of the Jewish rabbinic establishment or those of the church.

At the same time, precisely because the dialogue is developing in positive ways, it inevitably breaks through the formal frameworks that have been established and is practiced in the best possible way — through people rather than through institutions, and through those who do not need an official role in the dialogue in order to talk to one another.

In other words, the most successful interfaith dialogue takes place between religious leaders who desire to talk to one another, rather than between those who are formally obligated to talk to one another.

When we began to realise the extent of the horrors of Oct. 7, many of my Catholic friends contacted me immediately because of their deep concern.

This concern was personal and human, and my friends also expressed genuine anguish for the Jewish people because of the tremendous crisis it was experiencing. Such concern, bursting from the heart, is dearer to me than a thousand official letters from senior bureaucrats in the church.

On the night of Oct. 7, I discovered that my friends in the Catholic Church do not simply engage in diplomatic relations with me. Rather, they are truly my friends and friends of the Jewish people.

One good example of the kind of friendship I am referring to was provided by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem.

He expressed himself in an exceptional way on Oct. 16, when he offered himself in return for the Israelis who had been kidnapped: "I am ready for an exchange, anything, if this can lead to freedom, to bring the children home. No problem. There is total willingness on my part."

It was completely evident that his words were sincere, and the sorrow he expressed was completely authentic.

In all of Cardinal Pizzaballa's statements, even those in which he expressed his deep concern for the residents of Gaza and criticised the practices of the State of Israel (perfectly logical considering that he is the patriarch first and foremost of his Palestinian flock), he continued to harshly condemn the criminal acts of Hamas on Oct. 7. Continue reading

• Guy Alaluf is an Israeli Orthodox rabbi and teacher who researches the relationship between Judaism and the Catholic Church. He leads the Daath and Tvuna (Knowledge and Understanding) Orthodox Jewish Community in Rosh HaAyin, Israel.

In his historic first visit to Mongolia, the pope spoke to about 2,000 people at Ulaanbaatar's Steppe Arena and emphasised God's presence in difficult times.

Francis drew parallels with life in Mongolia, where about 30% of the land is desert.

"It is precisely in those deserts that we hear the good news that we are not alone in our journey; those times of dryness cannot render our lives barren forever; our cry of thirst does not go unheard," he said at Mass on the final day of his four-day visit.

In an evocative homily, Pope Francis captured the attention of both locals and the international community.

The pontiff used Mongolia's rugged landscapes and nomadic traditions as a metaphor to discuss the universal human journey towards happiness, love and spiritual fulfilment.

Drawing a parallel between Mongolia's arid steppes and the sometimes barren spiritual journey people face, Pope Francis proclaimed "In a spiritual sense, all of us are 'God's nomads,' pilgrims in search of happiness, wayfarers thirsting for love."

Speaking from the heart, Francis acknowledged the challenging aspects of spiritual life, stating that it can often feel as desolate as a hot desert.

He reassured the faithful that God provides the "clear, refreshing water" needed to sustain them in these moments of existential drought.

"Our hearts long to discover the secret of true joy, a joy that even in the midst of existential aridity can accompany and sustain us," the Pope said, adding a layer of hope to his poignant message.

While Mongolian Catholics number about 1,500, those attending Mass swelled by visits from neighbouring countries.

In particular, there are reports of Chinese Catholics facing travel restrictions to attend the papal visit and the possibility of investigation on their return.

In the course of his homily, Pope Francis encouraged people in the importance of embracing the Christian faith as the answer to our thirst for meaning and love, cautioning against worldly pursuits.

In a message of gratitude, he commended Mongolian Catholics as proof that great things can come from being small in number.

Religious leaders unite for peace

Earlier, Pope Francis joined representatives from 11 different faiths in Mongolia to promote peace, tolerance and harmony in the shadow of China's tightening grip on religious freedoms.

Gathered in a yurt-shaped theatre in Ulaanbaatar, the diverse group included Buddhists, Mongolian Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, evangelicals, Adventists, Latter-Day Saints, Shamans, Bahai, Shintoists and Orthodox Christians.

This event highlighted Mongolia's religious diversity and acceptance, a stark contrast to its history of religious persecution under communism. Since democracy emerged in Mongolia in the early 1990s, faith leaders have been welcomed back, ushering in a new era of religious tolerance.

The visit of the 10th reincarnation of Jevzundamba Khutugtu, an important figure in Buddhism, symbolises this hope for a more harmonious future.

The Pope's visit to Mongolia, a country nestled between China and Russia, sends a message of hope and unity in the face of religious oppression.

During the course of his visit, Francis urged religions to come together for the common good, emphasising the importance of harmony and cooperation. He highlighted the social significance of religious traditions in fostering unity and peace when sectarianism and violence are set aside.

While acknowledging the challenges humanity faces, the Pope stressed the potential for hope for the world through interreligious dialogue and cooperation.

Sources

CruxNow

Religion News Service

CathNews New Zealand

Jamiyah Singapore - the Muslim non-profit organisation behind the award - aims to "work and contribute towards the welfare and overall development of the Muslim community and mankind", according to its website mission statement.

"Inter-religious dialogue is not an optional extra: it is part of the evangelising mission of the Church," said Seow, a member of the Canossian Daughters of Charity, at the award ceremony.

She said "an effective way of making Jesus known and loved is to be with our sisters and brothers of other faiths so that they will know we are Christians by our love, our acceptance and our words.

"May all of us work quietly for inter-religious peace and harmony in our everyday lives, guided by God's Spirit of peace, because human efforts alone will not make peace happen."

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who presented the award, said interfaith harmony is not just an intellectual idea or attitude of mind.

It is an active and concerted practice in Singapore, he said. This is not just among religious leaders, but also in day-to-day matters of religious institutions.

He gave examples of interfaith cooperation. Of mosques and churches coordinating on practical day-to-day matters such as traffic and the sharing of parking spaces. Those same mosques and churches also invite congregants to their respective festivities.

"Interfaith harmony is a distinctive part of our identity," he said.

Seow's work

Seow has been involved in interfaith dialogue since the 1990s.

She is a member of the Singapore Archdiocesan Catholic Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue.

Since 1995 she's been the archdiocesan representative to Inter-Religious Organisation, Singapore (IRO), an interfaith forum.

In 2003, Seow became the IRO's first woman president.

She was appointed by Pope John Paul II as a consultor of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue and held that position from 2001 to 2004.

Seow is the executive director of Canossaville, a children and community services facility run by her congregation.

Singapore's multi-mix

Multi-religious, multi-cultural Singapore has a 5.64 million population which includes about 31.1 percent Buddhists, 18.9 percent Christians (including about 360,000 Catholics in 32 parishes), 15.6 percent Muslims and five percent Hindus, official data from 2021 says.

Followers of traditional Chinese faiths such as Taoism account for 8.8 percent.

Source

• UCA News

"There are some critics who say the pope is not brave but 'reckless', that he's taking steps against Catholic doctrine. That he's one step from heresy," the pope told journalists, March 8, on the plane from Iraq back to Rome.

Francis said his efforts to mend Christian-Muslim relations are far from being "capricious," and are in keeping with the doctrine laid out by the Second Vatican Council.

He said his decision to speak with Muslim religious leaders and promote interreligious dialogue is 'always made in prayer, in dialogue, asking for advice.'

Pope Francis became the first Roman pontiff to visit Iraq on his March 5-8 apostolic visit.

On March 6, the pope met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most prominent Shiite leader. The historic 45 minute meeting was the first official meeting between a pope and a prominent Shiite representative.

The pope described al-Sistani as "a humble man" who has "wisdom and prudence". He added that "it was good for my soul to encounter him".

Francis said the meeting was "a duty in his pilgrimage of faith" to promote human fraternity among religions.

It was Francis' second major outreach to Muslims. In 2019, Francis cosigned a declaration of human fraternity in Cairo, Egypt, with the Muslim Sunni leader Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar.

The pope and al-Sistani didn't sign a document.

Still, Francis described the interreligious dialogue as "a second step" in realizing the vision enshrined in his 2020 encyclical "Brothers All."

"This (trip) for me is like coming back to life. Because it means to touch the church, to touch the holy people of God, all the peoples," he said.

He defended his decision to travel to Iraq as coming "from inside" and "knowing the risks."

Sources

• Religion News
• CathNews

It is an effective means of countering accusations that religions sow division, he told representatives from the Argentine Institute for Interreligious Dialogue this week.

In "today's precarious world, dialogue among religions is not a weakness. It finds its reason for being in the dialogue of God with humanity."

Denouncing the fundamentalist mentality which "we cannot accept nor understand and cannot function anymore," Francis added: "We must beware of fundamentalist groups; each (religion) has their own.

"Fundamentalism is a plague and all religions have some fundamentalist first cousin."

Francis invited the Institute members visiting Rome to reflect on the document on "human fraternity" and to improve Christian-Muslim relations.

Francis and Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayeb, the grand imam of al-Azhar and a leading religious authority for many Sunni Muslims, co-signed the document in February.

Its aim is to show how to adopt a "culture of dialogue" while respecting each other's unique identity," Francis told the institute members.

"This is key: Identity cannot be negotiated because if you negotiate your identity, there is no dialogue, there is submission. Each (religion) with its own identity are on the path of dialogue."

Explaining the "complex human reality" of brotherhood can be seen in scripture when God asks Cain where his brother is, Francis says this question is still relevant.

It should lead members of all religions to reflect on ways of becoming "channels of brotherhood instead of walls of division," he says.

Looking at history - such as Catholic-Protestant massacres - is a good way to do this.

"Whoever doesn't feel frightened from within [about this] should ask themselves why."

Francis says he hopes the international community will welcome the "human fraternity" document "for the good of the human family who must pass from simple tolerance to true and peaceful coexistence.

"It is important to show that we believers are a factor of peace for human societies and in doing so, we will respond to those who unjustly accuse religions of inciting hatred and causing violence."

The Institute for Interreligious Dialogue was founded in Buenos Aires in 2002.

It was inspired by Francis while he was still a Cardinal, as a way "to promote understanding among men and women of different religious traditions in our city and the world."

Source

• America Magazine
• Image: Social News

He died at St Joseph's Abbey, Massachusetts, where he had been abbot from 1961 to 1981.

In the early 1980s Keating began his role as one of the chief architects of the contemporary practice of meditative prayer, which allows one to rest in the presence of God.

This form of silent prayer is now known as centering prayer.

During the early 1980s, the growing popularity of centering prayer led to Keating directing retreats and workshops worldwide. That networking, in turn, sparked widening interest in organisational and educational structuring.

Out of that grew Contemplative Outreach Ltd, which was officially incorporated in 1986. Keating was its first president.

Keating was internationally acclaimed for his extensive writing, lecturing and teaching on both meditative prayer and on interfaith discourse.

He spearheaded the formation of the Snowmass Interreligious Conferences in late 1983. These were a yearly gathering of major figures of various religious backgrounds that ran for three decades.

According to a website by Rabbi Hennoch Dov , Keating invited "deep practitioners" from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Native American and Islamic traditions to the Snowmann conferences to connect, compare notes and clarify. One result has been to distill some profound points of agreement shared by each of the participants.

In a press statement responding to Keatings' death, Contemplative Outreach expressed the organisation's deep sorrow at "the passing of our beloved teacher and spiritual father."

"He modeled for us the incredible riches and humility borne of a divine relationship that is not only possible but is already the fact in every human being.

"Such was his teaching, such was his life. He now shines his light from the heights and the depths of the heart of the Trinity."

Contemplative Outreach is planning to hold a 24-hour, worldwide prayer vigil.

Source

• America Magazine
• New York Times
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: YouTube

A European bishop was visiting Tokyo, and the then-young priest was assigned to be his tour guide for a day.

In the morning, they went to the Ginza shopping district and spent time exploring department stores.

The bishop was impressed at how up-to-date everything seemed and praised Japan for its embrace of Western modernity.

In the afternoon, they visited Tokyo's oldest Buddhist temple, Senso-ji, which dates back to 645 A.D., though the present buildings are replacements of those that burned down in World War II bombing raids that destroyed most of Tokyo.

The temple, more commonly known as Asakusa Kannon, is one of the most-visited spiritual sites in the world, with some 30 million people coming each year.

Most of them are probably tourists, and when I take visitors there, I get the impression that most of those tourists are Chinese.

The bishop's response to what he saw was critical of the temple, its devotees (few, if any, tourists back then) and what went on there, saying it was all paganism and demon worship.

The priest replied, "This morning, I took you to the temples of Mammon, and you praised them. Now, I've taken you to a place where my people have come for centuries for spiritual reasons, and you call it evil!"

That one sentence epitomizes why the church can be, must be and is engaged in exploring the meaning of religious pluralism for the mission of Christianity today.

Many years later, when I was reassigned to Japan after more than a decade away, I asked a friend, a Japanese layman who had studied theology, if he had any advice for me now that I was back in Japan.

"Yeah. Don't get into religious archeology."

I asked what he meant, and he explained that in response to the new emphasis on interreligious sharing, increasing numbers of Christians in Japan, including foreign missionaries, study Buddhism and engage in Christianized Zen meditation. Continue reading

• Father William Grimm, MM, is publisher of ucanews.com and is based in Tokyo.