Jakarta. Pope Francis has advised Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, against religious extremism. Pope Francis asked the leaders of Indonesia to save people from religious extremism. Religious extremism has changed people’s beliefs through deception and violence. Pope Francis is on a 9-day tour of South East Asia, where the Christian community is a minority. This is the first time the Pope has arrived in South East Asia for such a long time. During his tour, he asked the local Catholic Christians not to impose their religion on others. The Pope said that the Catholic Church will increase its cooperation in increasing dialogue between different religions so that it helps in preventing religious extremism. In his speech at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, the 87-year-old Pope said, in this way we can eliminate prejudices, an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust can increase. This is necessary to face common challenges like religious extremism and intolerance. These challenges try to impose their views by changing religion and using deception and violence.
Let us tell you that Indonesia has a population of 28 crores out of which 87 percent people are from the Muslim community. Despite the majority of Muslims, Indonesia is not an Islamic country, rather its constitution talks about the freedom to follow all religions.
Indonesia saw major Islamic violence two decades ago. In 2002, the Bali bombings killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. However, religious extremism has declined significantly since then.
During his meeting with the Pope, Indonesian President Joko Widodo thanked Francis for calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war.
The Pope suffers from knee and back pain, so he arrived at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in a wheelchair. In his speech, the Pope did not mention any specific violent incident but spoke about extremism, intolerance and conversion.
“There are times when faith in God… is unfortunately turned into a means to promote division and hatred instead of promoting peace, unity, dialogue, respect, cooperation and brotherhood,” he said.
Forcing your religion on others…
After giving a speech at the Presidential Palace, Pope Francis met the local Catholics of the Church of Jakarta. During this, he said that following the teachings of the Church does not mean imposing one’s religion on others or making them enemies of others.