ROME – For anyone who lived through the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and their aftermath, the memories may seem fresh as yesterday, but it’s actually been almost a quarter century since the Twin Towers fell and the world suddenly became a different, more menacing place.
Among the other consequences of 9/11 was to cast a global spotlight on the rise of religious extremism, especially its Islamic variant, and to make religion generally seem a destabilising driver of conflict.
As a result, 9/11 also had a profound effect on the papacy, beginning with the pontiff who was in office at the time, St John Paul II, and extending to the current incumbent, Pope Francis, who just wrapped up a three-day visit to Indonesia – a trip which, in its essentials, confirmed the aspiration of modern popes to function as the Chairman of the Board of what one might call “Religious Moderates Inc.”
The overarching effort has been to demonstrate that religion does not have to be the motor fuel of conflict, even if much modern terrorism justifies its carnage on the basis of alleged faith convictions. Instead, modern popes aim to convince that world that religion is actually an essential spiritual force for fostering understanding and dialogue, thereby de-legitimizing anyone who purports to do violence in the name of God.
That was the thrust, for instance, of a summit of religious leaders John Paul convened in Assisi in January 2002, in the immediate aftermath of the Twin Towers attack, building on his historic inter-faith assembly in the home of St Francis in 1986.
“We wish to do our part in fending off the dark clouds of terrorism, hatred, armed conflict, which in these last few months have grown particularly ominous on humanity’s horizon,” the Pope told his fellow religious leaders that day, a unique gathering of rabbis and muftis, preachers and shamans, sages and holy men and women of all stripes.
“Our gathering today offers us a chance to reaffirm that in God we find pre-eminently the union of justice and mercy,” the Pope said. “That is why religions are at the service of peace. It is the duty of religions, and of their leaders above all, to foster in the people of our time a renewed sense of the urgency of building peace.”
Rabbi Israel Singer, at the time the head of the World Jewish Congress, at one point turned to the pontiff, and said, “Only you, John Paul II, could put this together,” and then offered the pontiff a smart salute.
It was, in effect, an impromptu acknowledgment that the pope was not only the world’s most prominent religious leader, but also the only figure on the global stage with the political and spiritual capital to motivate the moderates in the way that terrorist leaders manage to kindle passions among extremists.
From that moment forward, a nearly constant effort of John Paul and his two successors, Benedict and Francis, has been to build on John Paul’s 2002 message, seeking ever more creative and consequential venues in which to drive the point home.
And that brings us to the purpose of Francis’s outing to Indonesia, which has launched his broader Sept. 2-13 odyssey to Asia and Oceania, a voyage which will also take him to Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore.
It is Indonesia, however, the world’s largest Muslim nation, which was the motivating force of the trip.
If Francis aims to sell religious tolerance and peace, in many ways Indonesia represents a natural market for the product line. We’re talking about a country where 87 percent of the vast population of 275 million is Muslim, yet except for the westernmost province of Aceh, Indonesian courts do not enforce Islamic shariah law – and even there, the decisions of shariah courts are subject to appeal to the country’s secular Supreme Court.
Religious tolerance is enshrined not only in the country’s constitution, but in the national ideology of <em>Pancasila</em> crafted by Sukarno, who led the country’s independence drive and served as its first president from 1945 to 1967, and whose vision was to unite the country on the basis of broad social principles rather than an exclusive religious identity.
Granted, on the ground those lofty ideals are sometimes more honored in the breach rather than the observance. Just a month before Francis arrived, authorities arrested three Islamic extremists who were plotting to glow up two Catholic churches. Though a police spokesman said the plot was not related to the papal trip, it was nonetheless a reminder of what many observers see as a trend towards a harder edge in some expressions of Indonesian Islam.
Nonetheless, mainstream Indonesian Muslims represent arguably the pope’s most natural dialogue partners and allies to project a different face of Islam, and of religious conviction generally. One especially potent symbol of this reality is a celebrated “Tunnel of Fraternity” in Jakarta, which connects the city’s fabled Istiqlal Mosque, the largest mosque in Asia and the third largest in the world after Mecca and Medina, with the Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption just across the street.
In a telling footnote, the Istiqlal Mosque actually was designed in 1954 by a Christian architect, Frederich Silaban, who was the son of an Evangelical Lutheran pastor, and who was personally selected by Sukarno to supervise the project.
The pontiff’s messaging began from the moment he landed.
Calling for mutual respect and trust among followers of different creeds, he told political leaders “this is indispensable for meeting common challenges, including that of countering extremism and intolerance, which through the distortion of religion attempts to impose their views by using deception and violence,” he said Sept. 4.
The pro-moderation pitch reached a crescendo the next day, when Francis and the Grand Imam of Istiqlal in Jakarta signed a joint declaration condemning the “dehumanisation” created by the manipulation of religion to justify violence.
“It is particularly worrying that religion is often instrumentalised in this regard, causing suffering to many, especially women, children and the elderly,” the two leaders said, insisting that the global role of religion “should include promoting and safeguarding the dignity of every human life.”
Addressing a group of religious leaders at the mosque, Francis called them to stand together in rejecting “rigidity, fundamentalism and extremism”, aberrations which, the pontiff warned, “are always dangerous and never justifiable.”
Umar, the mosque’s imam, returned the sentiment, telling the Pope among other things that through partnerships with the University of Qur’an Science in Jakarta and various universities in Egypt, Morocco, and the United States, the mosque aspires to be a global centre in producing a new generation of “moderate and internationally recognised leaders”.
“God willing, the message and ideals expressed by Your Holiness, Pope Francis, will be put into practice by all of us and brought to fruition,” Umar said, in effect acknowledging the pope’s new not just as head of the Catholic Church, but of religious moderates of all stripes.
Naturally, whether this mainstream coalition modern popes have worked to create will have the wherewithal to turn back extremist tides remains to be seen. To date the results appear mixed, though it’s an interesting thought experiment to contemplate how much more combustible the global scene might be without it.
In the meantime, however, Francis’s outing has encapsulated one indisputable truth: If we didn’t have a papacy, meaning an office and just a single man, with the social and spiritual standing to convene followers of various faiths to address the pathologies of religion in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, we’d have to invent it.
But such a papacy does exist, and over three days in Indonesia, Pope Francis has offered a vintage reminder of its possibilities.
<em>(Vatican Media screenshot)</em>
