In this era of globalization, Pope Francis focused on inter-religious harmony as he travelled to Indonesia, then to Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste, and Singapore.
In Indonesia, a country with a moderate Muslim-majority, Pope Francis urged the leaders to live up to its promise of “harmony in diversity” and to fight religious intolerance.
“Inter-faith dialogue has been going on in Indonesia for many years, and many people have been actively involved in that,” said Matius Ho, executive director of Leimena Institute, a Christian group in Indonesia.
Diversity shows up in many ways as every individual in society and in a community is unique in a variety of ways, including: religion, race, socio-economic status, education, lifestyle, politics, nationality, regional and ethnic backgrounds.
Even though people are different, they can come together to create a big picture, as diversity symbolizes the unique backgrounds that each one comes from.
It is expected that the thought processes and perspectives on life of each person are different, as their reactions to certain situations, and it is important to see all these viewpoints to find the points of harmony and diversity.
As a famous quote by Doug Floyd goes: “You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note.”
How can people nurture and cherish harmony within diversity? Diversity warrants a way of living that requires harmony within it. Without harmony, it would be difficult to live together.
Harmony must be nurtured for divergent societies to coexist with one another, to work together for a common cause based on their abilities and knowledge. Their skills and talents can be utilized to help during major catastrophes or for national development, and also to work on global issues such as advocacy on fighting hunger, human trafficking, and poverty. This would help uplift their morale, and also foster harmony.
Around the globe, many countries with their own different ethnicities and traditions continue to live together in peace despite their differences of religion, culture, or language.
And yet, Pope Francis assured Indonesian President Widodo about the Catholic Church’s commitment to increasing inter-religious dialogue but warned that such diversity in a country with the world’s largest Muslim population can also become a source of conflict — an apparent reference to episodes of intolerance that have flared in recent years in Indonesia as well as a broader concern about conflicts raging around the world, as Indonesia has regularly condemned Israel’s war with the militant Hamas group in Gaza.
Widodo thanked Pope Francis for the Vatican’s support for Palestinian civilians.
“War will not benefit anyone, war will only bring suffering and misery to the common people,” Widodo said. “Therefore, let us celebrate the differences that we have. Let us accept each other, and strengthen tolerance to realize peace, to realize a better world for all humanity.”
“Indonesia is a great country, a mosaic of cultures, ethnicities and religious traditions, a rich diversity, which is also reflected in the varied ecosystem,” Pope Francis said: “May no one succumb to the allure of fundamentalism and violence.”
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