MUMBAI – As the world’s largest Muslim nation heads to the polls on 14 February, which also happens to be Ash Wednesday this year, the country’s bishops are making special provisions to ensure the country’s minority Catholic population can participate in what is shaping up to be a tense election.
The bishops are also calling on Indonesians to uphold the country’s constitution, which guarantees religious freedom, amid ongoing concerns about the future of democracy in the country. In order to ensure that the country’s roughly nine million Catholics, representing just over three per cent of the 273 million population, are able to take part in the election, some dioceses in the country have decided to hold Ash Wednesday services either on Tuesday, 13 Feb., or Thursday, 15 Feb., depending on local circumstances.
“Both the general election and Ash Wednesday are important for us as Catholics and Indonesians,” says Bishop Antonius Subianto Bunjamin of Bandung, and president of the Indonesian Bishops’ Conference. “The active involvement in both events are the responsibility to fulfil our duty as citizens and our call to repent as Christians. We believe that we have to live as 100 per cent Catholic and 100 per cent Indonesian.”
In his own diocese, Bunjamin says, services will still be held on Wednesday as usual, but he’s also given parishes the option of adding services on either Tuesday or Thursday so that people will not be forced to choose on Wednesday between attending church or casting their vote.
It’s a sentiment echoed by Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo of Jakarta, which, for the moment, remains the country’s capital city.
“We strongly encourage all Catholics in the Archdiocese of Jakarta to participate and give their vote in this upcoming election as a sign of their responsibility as a citizen and their love for this country,” Suharyo says.
With polls in Jakarta open on 14 Feb. from 7:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m., Suharyo says that Ash Wednesday services will be held in the city both on Tuesday and on Wednesday to give Catholics a better chance to vote in addition to fulfilling their religious obligations.
He explains that the decision on this flexibility across the country is “based on pastoral prudence” and to help ensure that “Church-based activities will not hinder them from giving their votes”.
The 14 Feb. election in Indonesia, which is also the world’s third largest democracy after India and the United States, will select the president, vice president, members of the national parliament and also members of local legislative assemblies.
At the moment, the presidential race appears to be a three-way contest among Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto; Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the mayor of Solo and the son of outgoing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo; and Former education minister and ex-Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan.
Controversially, the country’s constitutional court lowered the age limit for presidential and vice presidential candidates, a ruling most observers saw as tailor-made to allow the 36-year-old Gibran to attempt to succeed his father.
Although religious minorities in Indonesia in the past have been strong backers of Widodo, observers say this time the situation is more complicated, with some concerned that both Prabowo and Anies have the backing of radical Muslim parties, while the perception that the incumbent in trying to tilt the scales in favour of his son has created fears of a dynasty in the making.
Issues driving the election contest include a $30 billion plan to transfer Indonesia’s capital to a new “smart city”, economic development, foreign policy (especially relations with China) and also minority rights in the largely Muslim nation.
Father Franz Magnis-Suseno, a Jesuit priest and professor who has authored several books on political philosophy, notes that Indonesia is in a “really dangerous situation”.
“For many of us, it is the question of how will Indonesian democracy go on?” Magnis-Suseno recently told Christianity Today. “Under Jokowi, democracy is going down…the drain.”
While Catholic leaders generally have avoided appearing to support particular candidates, they have called on voters to uphold minority rights.
“We suggest [that] people [decide how to] elect based on their conscience and in accordance with the whisper of the Holy Spirit,” Bunjamin says.
In a four-page circular letter distributed in November 2023 that was co-signed by Bunyamin and Bishop Paskalis Bruno Syukur of Bogor, the church leaders cited the country’s founding ideals of tolerance and religious freedom that are enshrined in Pancasila – the name is made from two words originally derived from Sanskrit meaning “five” and “principles” – the official foundational philosophical theory of Indonesia that dates from the era of gaining independence from the Netherlands.
“We encourage the people to be actively involved in producing new leaders who uphold Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution, respect diversity, have integrity, prioritise national interests above personal or group interests, side with the small, weak, poor, marginalised and disabled, and who uphold human dignity and protect the integrity of natural creation,” the two bishops said.
There is recurrent speculation that Pope Francis may visit Indonesia. He was scheduled to do so in late 2020, but that trip was postponed due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We ask the executive and legislative candidates as well as election organizers and the [armed forced] to unite in realising peaceful, honest, fair, transparent, quality and dignified elections,” the two bishops wrote.
Photo: Indonesian Javanese Christians attend Christmas eve mass at Ganjuran Catholic church on December 24, 2023 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 24 December 2023. Indonesia, which has the world’s largest muslim population, also has a sizeable Christian minority that makes up about 10 per cent of the country’s population. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images.)
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