Grand Imam of Istiqlal Mosque Nasaruddin Umar kisses Pope Francis following an interreligious meeting with religious leaders in Jakarta, Indonesia on September 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: via Reuters

Pope Francis joined the grand imam of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque in pledging to work together to fight religiously inspired violence and protect the environment on Thursday (September 5, 2024), issuing a joint call for interfaith friendship and common cause at the heart of the Pope’s visit to Indonesia.

In an encounter rich with symbolic meaning and personal touches, Pope Francis travelled to Jakarta’s iconic Istiqlal Mosque for an interfaith gathering with representatives of the six religions that are officially recognised in Indonesia: Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Catholicism and Protestantism.

There, he and the grand imam, Nasaruddin Umar, stood at the ground-level entrance to the “Tunnel of Friendship,” an underpass which connects the mosque compound with the neighbouring Catholic cathedral, Our Lady of the Assumption.

Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, has held out the tunnel as a tangible sign of its commitment to religious freedom, which is enshrined in the Constitution but has been challenged by repeated instances of discrimination and violence against religious minorities.

Approaching the elevator to the tunnel, Pope Francis said it was a potent sign of how different religious traditions “have a role to play in helping everyone pass through the tunnels of life with our eyes turned towards the light.”

He encouraged all Indonesians of every religious tradition to “walk in search of God and contribute to building open societies, founded on reciprocal respect and mutual love, capable of protecting against rigidity, fundamentalism and extremism, which are always dangerous and never justifiable.”

The Pope travelled to Indonesia, at the start of an 11-day, four-nation trip to Asia and Oceania, to encourage Indonesia to combat religiously inspired violence and pledge the Catholic Church’s commitment to greater fraternity.

The encounter at the mosque showed the personal side of that policy, with Pope Francis and Imam Umar — the aged pope and the youthful imam — showing a clear affinity for one another. As Francis was leaving, he grasped Imam Umar’s hand, kissed it and held it to his cheek.

The Pope has made improving Catholic-Muslim ties a hallmark of his papacy and has prioritised travel to majority Muslim nations to further the agenda.

During a 2019 visit to the Gulf, Pope Francis and the imam of Al-Azhar, the 1,000-year-old seat of Sunni learning, launched a “Human Fraternity” movement calling for greater Christian-Muslim efforts to promote peace around the world. More recently, the Pope travelled to Najaf, Iraq, in 2021 to visit the top Shiite cleric, who delivered a message of peaceful coexistence.

The new initiative launched Thursday, called “The Istiqlal Declaration,” now becomes another pillar of Pope Francis’ interfaith push. It was signed by the Pope and Imam Umar at a formal ceremony in the tent on the Istiqlal mosque compound. The other religious representatives at the encounter didn’t co-sign it but were listed by organisers as having “accompanied” it.

The document said religion should never be abused to justify conflict or violence, but should instead be used to resolve conflicts and protect and promote human dignity. It also called for “decisive action” to protect the environment and its resources, blaming man-made actions for the current climate crisis.

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

Fighting climate change has been an important priority for the Argentine Jesuit pope, who has issued encyclicals insisting on the moral dimension of caring for God’s creation. The climate issue is of existential importance to Indonesia, a tropical archipelago stretching across the equator and home to the world’s third-largest rainforest and a variety of endangered wildlife and plants.

Umar, the grand imam, recalled in his remarks to the gathering that the Istiqlal mosque was designed by a Christian architect and is used for a variety of social and educational programs that benefit everyone, not just Muslims.

“Since I have served as the grand imam of the Istiqlal Mosque, I have strongly emphasised that the Istiqlal Mosque is not only a house of worship for Muslims, but also a big house for humanity,” he said. “We hope and have the principle that humanity is one, so anyone can enter and benefit.”