My ability to follow Pope Francis on his recent trip to the Indonesia, the first stop on his just-concluded four-nation Southeast Asian journey, was limited by what I could find in "live images" streamed in YouTube, sundry news articles, and the yet sparse formal information I could get from the official Vatican website. But I was gratified to see the colorfully diverse ethnic images of the heartfelt welcome that the Indonesians, who are overwhelmingly Muslim, accorded the aged but smiling Pilgrim of Peace and Fraternity in a wheelchair.
Leading Indonesia as a robust, religiously and culturally plural, southeast Asian nation of 277 million people is President Joko Widodo – a huge archipelago like the Philippines. But where Christians outnumber Muslims in the Philippines,[1] it is the opposite in Indonesia. Leading Indonesia's Muslim community of 241 million Muslims (87.2%), the largest such community within a nation in the world, was the Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar of the Istiqlal Mosque in Djakarta, while Cardinal Ignatius Suharya Hardjoatmodjo of Djakarta represented some 8.6 million Catholics (3.12%).
From the global perspective and the intentionality of this encounter[2], however, of some 8 billion people in the world today, Pope Francis was standing for some 2.4 billion Christians (or 31% of about 8 billion people in the world today) and of this population 1.3 billion are Catholics. Considering estimated growth rates, however, by 2050, Muslims and Christians will make up some 60% of the world population, with Islam probably outpacing Christianity in growth in the second half of this century. Efforts towards peace and harmony between these two world religions, which Francis says has been misused for war, continue to be pressing.
It was singular enough that the Pope and the Grand Imam were coming together at all. But Djakarta could not have been a more fitting setting for this fraternal encounter in peace where the Catholic neo-gothic Gareja Katedral Jakarta is dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption. Close by is the largest Mosque in southeast Asia. Its single minaret that towers 99.66 meters into the heavens, represents the 99 names of Allah and distinguishes the architecturally unique Mosque whose name Istiqlal, meaning "independence," commemorates Indonesia's independence from Dutch colonial rule. Extraordinary is that connecting these two houses of different religions is a Tunnel of Friendship, completed in 2021, a testament to the spirit of inter-religious dialogue, mutual respect and fraternity between Christianity and Islam not only in Indonesia but in the world today.
It is in this context that the Joint Declaration between Pope Francis and the Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar "On Religious Harmony and Environmental Protection" should be appreciated. In a world where too often religions have been misused for violence and war and where human consumption, production and environmental abuse have already breached most of the boundaries of its sustainability, the two religious leaders draw on the depth of their respective spiritualities and on their willingness to collaborate to address both challenges:
- Through the shared promotion of religious harmony: ongoing recognition of the need for mutual understanding, mutual respect, and peaceful co-existence.
- Through environmental responsibility: stressing the urgency of addressing environmental degradation, climate change, and unsustainable practices that harm the environment. Both leaders acknowledge the moral responsible of all in this human community, regardless of their faith, to protect creation and safeguard the environment for future generation.
- Through shared ethical principles: promoting a shared vision based on the ethical teachings of both Christianity and Islam that protect the vulnerable, promote justice, and nurture compassion for all created things.
- Through Action: calling on Muslims and Christians to take action against the environmental crisis.
- Through Inter-faith collaboration: recognizing that faith-based collaboration worldwide is key to addressing the global challenges of peace and harmony.[3]
All this may seem quite remote from issues of education in the Philippines, and especially from issues of education in our homes. The recently published report of the Congressional Educational Committee 2[4] exposes disheartening systemic flaws in our educational system on all levels, and finding the budget to keep food on our tables in the Philippines is challenging on all levels of Philippine Society. Meanwhile, relevant to both problem contexts, are the questions: Why should one do right, and not wrong? Why should one acknowledge God, and not just turn away from faith? Why should one respect one's neighbor and not just exploit him or her? Why should one care about the earth, and not just get rich – as so many others have – exploiting it? Does the Philippine system of education seriously consider answers to these questions as part of its system? Or are challenges of forming the moral fiber of citizens and religious believers in the local and global contexts beyond the formal system of education? If they are indeed beyond it, where are they appropriately handled? Is the current culture within the Filipino family part of the problem or the solution? How is it with the Christian communities and the Muslim Umah in the Philippines? Is there anything like a Tunnel of Friendship that connects the parish church to the local mosque?
[1] Of today's Philippine population of 114 million, 92.5% (105 million) are Christian and 80.6% (92 million) are Catholic Christians; 6.4% (ca. 7.3 million) are Muslim or followers of Islam. The Muslim minority in the Philippines (6.4%) is roughly double the size of the Catholic minority (3.12%) in Indonesia.
[2] It is parallel to the historic encounter between Pope Francis and Ahmed Al Tayeb. the Grand Imam of Al Azhar (Egypt) in Abu Dhabi when they jointly signed the landmark "Document on Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together."
[3] While the official version of the Joint Declaration on Religious Harmony and Environmental Protection was not yet available on the Vatican Website, I consulted AI through CHAT GPT for content in this blog.
[4] The EDCOM2 Report can be downloaded at: https://edcom2.gov.ph
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