pope visits the philippines in 2015

APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS TO SRI LANKA AND THE PHILIPPINES

(12-19 GENNAIO 2015)

Live video transmission by CTV (Vatican Television Center)   

Missal for the Apostolic Journey

Monday, 12 January 2015  

Tuesday, 13 January 2015  

Wednesday, 14 January 2015

Thursday, 15 January 2015

Friday, 16 January 2015

Saturday, 17 January 2015

Sunday , 18 January 2015

Monday, 19 January 2015

Rome: +1h UTC Colombo: +5h,30’ UTC Madhu: +5h,30’ UTC Manila: +8h UTC Tacloban: +8h UTC

Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

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International, tens of thousands welcome pope francis in the philippines.

Eyder Peralta

Pope Francis waves to the faithful upon his arrival in Manila on Thursday. Lam Yik Fei/Getty Images hide caption

Pope Francis waves to the faithful upon his arrival in Manila on Thursday.

With tens of thousands of faithful lined up to welcome him, Pope Francis landed in Manila, capital of the Philippines, on Thursday.

As Reuters reports, the visit is marked by intense security, the biggest security operation of its kind in the country's history. Reuters explains :

"The other pontiffs to visit the Philippines were both targets of assassination attempts, prompting the deployment of nearly 50,000 soldiers and police in the capital and in the central Philippine province of Leyte for his weekend trip there. "On Wednesday, President Benigno Aquino personally inspected motorcade routes and public venues, which were lined with black-and-white concrete barriers topped by thick wire mesh to control eager crowd. "Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas said Aquino was willing to serve as Francis' 'personal bodyguard' to ensure his safety. In a televised address on Monday, Aquino appealed to Filipinos to follow security rules after two people were killed in a stampede during a religious procession on Friday."

The plots, according to Reuters, happened in 1970, when an artist tried to stab Pope Paul VI and in 1995, when police discovered a plot to blow up Pope John Paul II.

The New York Times reports that despite the church's waning influence in the Philippines, Pope Francis is being welcomed with "arms open wide."

When Pope John Paul II visited, it prompted the "largest papal gathering ever."

Some experts, reports the Times , are expecting Francis to break that record with gathering that could exceed eight million people.

"There were four million people gathered when Pope John Paul II came to Manila in 1995," the Rev. Xavier C. Alpasa, a priest and professor at Ateneo de Manila, a Jesuit university in Manila, told the Times . "That record will be broken because of the deep spirituality of Filipino Catholics, but also because of Pope Francis himself. People are so enamored by his inclusive statements, his revolutionary ideas, his compassion."

Francis will be in the Phillipines through the weekend. He's scheduled to officiate mass near the Tacloban Airport on Saturday. If you remember, Tacloban was devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.

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10 years of Pope Francis: A look back at his visit in the Philippines | ABS-CBN News

10 years of Pope Francis: A look back at his visit in the Philippines

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Pope Francis arrives in Philippines

High point of five-day visit is expected to be open-air mass in Manila on Sunday, expected to draw record crowd of six million

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Pope Francis arrived in the Philippines on Thursday for a five-day visit that is tipped to attract a record papal crowd.

The pontiff flew to the capital, Manila, from Sri Lanka, where a million worshippers gathered to watch him canonise the country’s first saint and to listen to a homily on religious tolerance.

Francis has said his two-nation tour is aimed at adding momentum to already impressive growth for the Catholic church in Asia, with its support in the Philippines the benchmark for the rest of the region.

About 80% of the former Spanish colony’s 100 million people are Catholic, and the pope is expected to receive an enthusiastic welcome.

“Every step he makes, every car ride he takes, every moment he stays with us is precious for us,” said archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. “Seeing him pass by is a grace. Waving our hands at him in loving welcome is an experience of a lifetime.”

The high point is expected to be an open-air mass at dusk on Sunday at a park in Manila, with organisers preparing for up to six million people despite security concerns and a forecast of rain.

“I really want to see the pope, not just see him on a TV, so I am prepared to sacrifice,” said Vanessa Tupaz, 54, a saleswoman, referring to worries about the dangers of being in such a huge crowd. “There is a feeling that blessings will be coming and there will be answered prayers and naturally, there will be a feeling that you are part of a celebration.”

Organisers have said that if the crowd is as big as expected, it will surpass the previous record for a papal gathering of five million during a mass by John Paul II at the same venue in 1995.

Francis, who will be making the fourth papal visit to the Philippines, is due to visit communities devastated by super-typhoon Haiyan, which killed or left missing 7,350 people in 2013. Church officials have said one of the main reasons for Francis wanting to visit the Philippines was to make a “mercy and compassion” trip to meet survivors of the typhoon.

On Saturday, he is scheduled to deliver a mass to tens of thousands of people in Tacloban, one of the worst-hit cities in the central Philippines, and have an intimate lunch with 30 typhoon survivors.

Authorities have expressed concerns over the pope’s security in the Philippines, where attempts have been made to kill visiting pontiffs twice before. Nearly 40,000 soldiers and police are being deployed in response to what the Philippine military chief General Gregorio Catapang described as a “security nightmare”.

Potential stampedes from the giant crowds, as well as the threat of Islamist militants or lone-wolf assailants, are among the concerns.

On the first papal visit to the Philippines in 1970, a Bolivian painter Benjamin Mendoza donned a fake priest’s cassock and swung a knife at Pope Paul VI as he arrived at Manila airport. Paul VI was wounded but continued his trip without disclosing his injury.

A week before John Paul II’s 1995 visit, police uncovered a plot by foreign Islamist extremists to kill him by bombing his Manila motorcade route.

On Monday the Philippine president, Benigno Aquino, made a nationally televised address specifically to highlight the security threats for the pope and call on all Filipinos to help protect him. “I ask you, do you want history to record that a tragedy involving the pope happened in the Philippines,” Aquino said.

Adding to the concerns, the 78-year-old pontiff has insisted he will not travel in a bulletproof “popemobile” during big events, so that can he be closer to the faithful.

The pope flew out of Sri Lanka on Thursday morning, a day after one million people gathered to hear him give mass in what police said was the biggest public celebration ever in the capital, Colombo.

Many had waited through the night to see the first pope to visit the island in two decades canonise Joseph Vaz, a 17th-century missionary who disguised himself as a beggar to evade persecution.

Francis also became the first pope to visit Sri Lanka’s former warzone, using a prayer service at a small jungle shrine to urge forgiveness to heal the wounds of a long civil war.

His visit, which began on Tuesday, came days after an election that exposed bitter divisions on the island and saw the surprise victory of Maithripala Sirisena over the hardline incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith said the pope had brought “great joy” to the island as it struggled to recover from civil war.

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As Pope Francis Visits Philippines, Tensions Between Church and Government Surface

Philippines president criticizes church, president benigno s. aquino iii of the philippines admonished the catholic clergy in the presence of the pope, saying some members were too critical, and have even criticized his hair..

MANILA, PHILIPPINES (JANUARY 16, 2014) (HOST BROADCASTER POOL- ACCESS ALL) (SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY OVERLAID WITH GATHERED GUESTS) (English) PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT, BENIGNO AQUINO, SAYING: “In these attempts at correcting the wrongs of the past, one would think that the Church would be a natural ally. In contrast to their previous silence, some members of the clergy seem to think that the way to be true to the faith is to find something to criticize, even to the extent that one prelate admonished me to do something about my hair, as if it were a mortal sin.”

By Floyd Whaley

• Jan. 16, 2015

MANILA — Pope Francis’ first full day in the Philippines was filled with the pageantry befitting a country in which more than 80 percent of the people identify themselves as Roman Catholics. But the tensions that have roiled relations between the church and the country’s leaders in recent years was also on display.

At a gathering with dignitaries on Friday, President Benigno S. Aquino III, who has battled local church leaders for much of his administration, complained that they had been overly critical of him and silent about his predecessor’s suspected corruption. And in his own remarks, the pope indirectly weighed in on the side of the clergy on an issue that has caused tensions with the government: the enactment of a law to provide free contraception for women.

In some of his strongest statements of church teachings against artificial contraception, Francis exhorted people who had come to see him to “be sanctuaries of respect for life, proclaiming the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death.” He added, “What a gift this would be to society, if every Christian family lived fully its noble vocation!”

Vatican anaysts interpreted another of the pope’s remarks — “Beware of the new ideological colonization that tries to destroy the family” — as one of his strongest arguments yet in support of the church’s traditional stance against gay marriage. He also warned of attempts to “redefine the very institution of marriage.” Although Francis has made similar remarks opposing gay marriage, his comments Friday, on such an international stage, will probably reassure Catholic traditionalists who were perturbed by his oft-cited remark about gay priests in which he said, “Who am I to judge?”

Mr. Aquino’s comments focused in part on the church’s close relations with his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who supported the clergy’s efforts to block the contraception bill. Mr. Aquino’s government has aggressively investigated Mrs. Arroyo, who was arrested in 2011 and charged with election fraud; she was later indicted on suspicion of misusing more than $8 million in government lottery proceeds. Many officials of her administration have also been implicated in corruption scandals.

“There was a true test of faith when many members of the church, once advocates for the poor, the marginalized, and the helpless, suddenly became silent in the face of the previous administration’s abuses, which we are still trying to rectify to this very day,” Mr. Aquino said at the presidential palace as Pope Francis looked on somberly. “In these attempts at correcting the wrongs of the past, one would think that the church would be our natural ally.”

He continued, “In contrast to their previous silence, some members of the clergy now seem to think that the way to be true to the faith means finding something to criticize, even to the extent that one prelate admonished me to do something about my hair, as if it were a mortal sin.”

Mr. Aquino was referring to a remark made in 2012 by an archbishop, Ramon Arguelles, who said that the balding president “should wear a wig.”

In his remarks, Mr. Aquino also praised past Catholic Church leaders in the Philippines who were instrumental in the overthrow of the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and he called Francis a “unifying and revitalizing voice” in the church.

Critics of Mr. Aquino reacted swiftly to his negative comments, with some saying that they were inappropriate for a visit intended to welcome the pope.

“Aquino used the event to discuss his issues with the church,” said Renato Reyes Jr., secretary general of Bayan, a left-leaning organization. “Unable to rise above his own concerns, he turned the event into a gripe session even as he conveniently omitted the exclusion and inequality pervading the country under his watch.”

In a statement delivered before Mr. Aquino made his comments, Francis spoke out against the corruption that has dogged the Philippines for decades, urging an audience of senior political leaders “to reject every form of corruption, which diverts resources from the poor, and to make concerted efforts to ensure the inclusion of every man and woman and child.”

“It is now, more than ever, necessary that political leaders be outstanding for honesty, integrity and commitment to the common good,” he added.

Mr. Aquino has made anticorruption efforts a hallmark of his presidency, but his administration has been hit by multiple accusations of graft in the last year.

The pope is on a five-day visit to the Philippines, the country with Asia’s largest Catholic population. He has been welcomed with great enthusiasm, with thousands lining streets to catch a glimpse of him as he passes by.

On Saturday, the pope arrived in Leyte, the island in the central Philippines that was devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013. On Sunday, he is to celebrate a public Mass in Manila that government officials say could draw more than five million people.

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Pope will visit the Istiqlal mosque in Indonesia on the first stop of an interfaith Asian trip

August 28, 2024 (Mainichi Japan)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- When Pope Francis begins his Asia tour next week, one of his early stops will be at Indonesia's iconic Istiqlal mosque.

The 87-year-old head of the Catholic Church will hold an interfaith meeting with representatives of the country's six officially recognized religions as the populous Southeast Asian nation faces growing challenges to its tolerant image.

Francis, who has suffered a slew of health problems and has become increasingly reliant on a wheelchair, has a rigorous schedule during his four-nation visit. He will start his trip in Jakarta on Sept. 3, where he will meet Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

In Istiqlal mosque, the Argentine Jesuit, known for promoting religious dialogue, will meet delegates of Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Catholicism and Protestantism. Indonesia's constitution recognizes the latter two as separate religions. About 87% of the country's 280 million people are Muslim, however, it has the third-largest Christian population in Asia after the Philippines and China. Only 2.9% of the total population is Catholic.

The mosque of Istiqlal, which means independence in Arabic, is the largest in Southeast Asia, covering over 22 acres (9 hectares). Its name is a constant reminder of the country's fight against Dutch colonialists who ruled it for nearly 350 years. Across from the mosque lies the Roman Catholic neo-Gothic Our Lady of The Assumption Cathedral in Jakarta. The proximity of the two houses of worship is symbolic of how religions can peacefully coexist, according to official websites.

The mosque and cathedral are linked by an underpass known as the "Tunnel of Friendship," about 28 meters (91 feet) in length and molded after a handshake gesture to symbolize religious tolerance. The pope is expected to walk through the tunnel.

Istiqlal mosque's Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar told The Associated Press that Francis choosing Indonesia as the first stop of his Asian visit makes "the Muslim community proud." He also said they will use the pope's visit "to discuss the common ground between religious communities and emphasize the commonalities between religions, ethnicities and beliefs."

Umar acknowledged that an "increasingly plural society" like Indonesia can face more challenges, "but we need to know we live together under God."

While Indonesia's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, over the past several years, its perception as a moderate Muslim nation has been undermined by flaring intolerance, from the imprisonment of Jakarta's Christian governor for blasphemy, which resulted in a series of protests in 2016, to the canings of gay men in Aceh, a province that practices its version of Islamic Shariah law. There were also reports of violence against religious minorities, and some faith groups have been unable to secure building permits for places of worship.

Meanwhile, Cantika Syamsinur, a 23-year-old college student who had just finished praying in Istiqlal mosque and was on her way to the cathedral, said she welcomed the pope's visit and the interfaith meeting. "There are many religions in Indonesia and I hope we respect each other."

Francis will be the third pope to visit Indonesia. The trip was originally planned for 2020 but was called off because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Four years of waiting is quite long," said Susyana Suwadie who heads the cathedral's museum, adding she was overwhelmed by emotions as she awaited the pope's visit. "This important historic moment is finally happening."

Some are hopeful the pope's interreligious meeting will propel changes on a grassroots level.

Thomas Ulun Ismoyo, a Catholic Priest who is also the spokesperson for the Pope Francis Visitation Committee in Indonesia, said that religious leaders in Indonesia play a very significant role because the masses listen to them. He said he hopes the pope's visit "will lead to something good" and advocate for a better world where humanity and social justice are prized.

Andi Zahra Alifia Masdar, a 19-year-old college student in Jakarta, concurred: "We can be more accepting of each other, more tolerant, and able to live side by side, not always clashing."

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Church sex abuse scandals in East Timor met by silence, but Pope Francis’ visit brings new attention

When the Vatican acknowledged in 2022 that the Nobel Peace Prize-winning, East Timorese independence hero Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo had sexually abused young boys, it appeared that the global clergy sexual abuse scandal that has compromised the Cathol...

DILI, East Timor -- When the Vatican acknowledged in 2022 that the Nobel Peace Prize-winning, East Timorese independence hero Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo had sexually abused young boys, it appeared that the global clergy sexual abuse scandal that has compromised the Catholic Church’s credibility around the world had finally arrived in Asia’s newest country.

And yet, the church in East Timor today is stronger than ever, with most downplaying, doubting or dismissing the claims against Belo and those against a popular American missionary who confessed to molesting young girls. Many instead focus on their roles saving lives during the country’s bloody struggle against Indonesia for independence.

Pope Francis will come face to face with the Timorese faithful on his first trip to the country , a former Portuguese colony that makes up half of the island of Timor off the northern coast of Australia. But so far, there is no word if he will meet with victims or even mention the sex abuse directly, as he has in other countries where the rank-and-file faithful have demanded an accounting from the hierarchy for how it failed to protect their children.

Even without pressure from within East Timor to address the scandals, it would be deeply meaningful to the victims if Francis did, said Tjiyske Lingsma, the Dutch journalist who helped bring both abuse cases to light.

“I think this is the time for the pope to say some words to the victims, to apologize," she said in an interview from Amsterdam.

The day after Lingsma detailed the Belo case in a September 2022 report in De Groene Amsterdammer magazine, the Vatican confirmed that Belo had been sanctioned secretly two years earlier.

In Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni's statement , he said the church had been aware of the case since 2019 and had imposed disciplinary measures in 2020, including restrictions on Belo's movements and a ban on voluntary contact with minors.

Despite the official acknowledgement, many in East Timor still don't believe it, like Dili university student Martinha Goveia, who is still expecting Belo will show up to be at Francis' side during his upcoming visit.

If he's not there, she said, “that is not good in my opinion,” because it will confirm he is being sanctioned by the Vatican.

Vegetable trader Alfredo Ximenes said the allegations and the Vatican's acknowledged sanctions were merely rumors, and that he hoped Belo would come to welcome the pope and refute the claims in person.

"Our political leaders should immediately meet him to end the problem and persuade him to return, because after all he has contributed greatly to national independence,” Ximenes said.

Timorese officials refused to answer questions about the Belo case, but there’s been no attempt to avoid mentioning him, with a giant billboard in Dili welcoming Pope Francis, whose visit starts Sept. 9, placed right above a mural honoring Belo and three others as national heroes.

Only about 20% of East Timor's people were Catholic when Indonesia invaded in 1975, shortly after Portugal abandoned it as a colony.

Today, some 98% of East Timor's 1.3 million people are Catholic, making it the most Catholic country in the world outside the Vatican.

A law imposed by Indonesia requiring people to choose a religion, combined with the church's opposition to the military occupation and support for the resistance over years of bloody fighting that saw as many as 200,000 people killed, helped bring about that flood of new members.

Belo won the Nobel Peace Prize for his bravery in drawing international attention to Indonesian human rights abuses during the conflict, and American missionary Richard Daschbach was widely celebrated for his role in helping save lives in the struggle for independence.

Their heroic status, and societal factors in Asia, where the culture tends to confer much power on adults and authority figures, helps explain why the men are still revered while elsewhere in the world such cases are met with outrage, said Anne Barrett Doyle, of the online resource Bishop Accountability.

“Bishops are powerful, and in developing countries where the church is dominant, they are inordinately powerful,” Barrett Doyle said.

“But no case we’ve studied exhibits as extreme a power differential as that which exists between Belo and his victims. When a child is raped in a country that is devoutly Catholic, and the sexual predator is not only a bishop but a legendary national hero, there is almost no hope that justice will be done.”

In 2018, as rumors built against Daschbach, the priest confessed in a letter to church authorities to abusing young girls from at least 1991 to 2012.

“It is impossible for me to remember even the faces of many of them, let alone the names,” he wrote.

The 87-year-old was defrocked by the Vatican and criminally charged in East Timor, where he was convicted in 2021 and is now serving 12 years in prison.

But despite his confession and court testimony from victims that detailed the abuse, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, an independence hero himself, has visited Daschbach in prison — hand-feeding him cake and serving him wine on his birthday — and has said winning the ex-priest's early release is a priority for him.

In Belo's case, six years after winning the Nobel Prize, which he shared with current East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, he suddenly retired as the head of the church in East Timor in 2002, citing health reasons and stress.

Not long after his retirement, Belo, today 76, was sent by the Vatican and his Salesian missionary order to another former Portuguese colony, Mozambique, to work as a missionary priest.

There, he has said, he spent his time “teaching catechism to children, giving retreats to young people.” Today he lives in Portugal.

Suspicion arose that Belo, like others before him, had been allowed to quietly retire rather than face any reckoning, given the reputational harm to the church that would have caused.

In a 2023 interview with The Associated Press, Pope Francis suggested that indeed was the case, reasoning that was how such matters were handled in the past.

“This is a very old thing where this awareness of today did not exist,” Francis said. “And when it came out about the bishop of East Timor, I said, ‘Yes, let it go in the open.’ ... I’m not going to cover it up. But these were decisions made 25 years ago when there wasn’t this awareness."

Lingsma said she first heard allegations against Belo in 2002, the same year East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, won its formal independence after the Indonesian occupation ended in 1999. She said she wasn't able to investigate the case and build enough evidence to publish her story on him until two decades later.

Her story garnered international attention , as well as the Vatican's acknowledgement of the case, but in East Timor was primarily met with skepticism and negative reactions toward her reporting. Her 2019 story exposing the Daschbach case eventually prompted authorities to charge him, but also did not lead to the outpouring of anger that she had anticipated.

“The reaction was silence,” she recalled.

During the fight for independence, priests, nuns and missionaries put themselves at great risk to help people, like “parents wanting to save their children,” helping form today's deep connection between the church and people of East Timor, said Timorese historian Luciano Valentim da Conceixao.

The church's role is even enshrined in the preamble to the young country's constitution, which says that the Catholic Church “has always been able to take on the suffering of all the people with dignity, placing itself on their side in the defense of their most fundamental rights.”

Because so many remember the church's significant role during those dark days, it has fostered an environment where it is difficult for victims of abuse to speak out for fear of being labeled anti-church, and where men like Belo and Daschbach continue to receive support from all walks of society.

“Pedophilia and sexual violence are common enemies in East Timor, and we should not mix them up with the struggle for independence,” said Valentim da Costa Pinto, executive director of The Timor-Leste NGO Forum, an umbrella organization for some 270 NGOs.

The chancellor of the Dili Diocese today, Father Ludgerio Martins da Silva, said the cases of Belo and Daschbach were the Vatican's jurisdiction, and that most people consider the sex abuse scandals a thing of the past.

“We don't hear a lot of people ask about bishop Belo because he left the country... twenty years ago,” da Silva said.

Still, Lingsma said she knew of ongoing allegations against “four or five” other priests, including two who were now dead, “and if I know them, I'm the last person to know.”

“That also shows that this whole reporting system doesn't work at all,” she said.

Da Conceixao, the historian, said he did not know enough about the cases against Daschbach or Belo to comment on them, but that he was well acquainted with their role in the independence struggle and called them “fearless freedom fighters and clergymen.”

“Clergymen are not free from mistakes,” da Conceixao conceded. “But we, the Timorese, have to look with a clear mind at the mistakes they made and the good they did for the country, for the freedom of a million people, and of course the value is not the same.”

Because of that prevailing attitude, Barrett Doyle said “the victims of those two men have to be the most isolated and least supported clergy sex abuse victims in the world right now. "

For that reason, Francis' visit to East Timor could be a landmark moment in his papacy, she said, if he were to denounce Daschbach and Belo by name and praise the courage of the victims, sending a message that would resonate globally.

“Given the exalted status of the Catholic Church in East Timor, just imagine the impact of papal fury directed at Belo, Daschbach and the yet unknown number of other predatory clergy in that country,” she said.

“Francis could even address the country’s hidden victims, promising his support and urging them to contact him directly about their abuse — he literally could save lives.”

Rising reported from Bangkok and Winfield from Rome.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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Pope Francis to begin four-nation Asia tour in Indonesia with multi-faith visit

• X (formerly Twitter)

When Pope Francis begins his Asia tour next week, one of his early stops will be at Indonesia's iconic Istiqlal mosque.

The 87-year-old head of the Catholic Church will hold an interfaith meeting with representatives of the country's six officially recognised religions as the populous South-East Asian nation faces growing challenges to its tolerant image.

Pope Francis, who has suffered a slew of health problems and has become increasingly reliant on a wheelchair, has a rigorous schedule during his four-nation visit.

He will start his trip in Jakarta on September 3, where he will meet Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

In Istiqlal mosque, the Argentine Jesuit, known for promoting religious dialogue, will meet delegates of Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Catholicism and Protestantism.

Indonesia's constitution recognises the latter two as separate religions.

Istiqlal mosque's Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar said that Pope Francis chose Indonesia as the first stop of his Asian visit, which made "the Muslim community proud".

He also said they would use the Pope's visit "to discuss the common ground between religious communities and emphasise the commonalities between religions, ethnicities and beliefs".

Imam Umar acknowledged that an "increasingly plural society" like Indonesia could face more challenges, "but we need to know we live together under God".

While Indonesia's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, over the past several years its perception as a moderate Muslim nation has been undermined by flaring intolerance, from the imprisonment of Jakarta's Christian governor for blasphemy to the caning of gay men in Aceh, a province that practices its version of Islamic Shariah law.

There were also reports of violence against religious minorities, and some faith groups have been unable to secure building permits for places of worship.

Meanwhile, Cantika Syamsinur, a 23-year-old college student who had just finished praying in Istiqlal mosque and was on her way to the cathedral, said she welcomed the Pope's visit and the interfaith meeting.

"There are many religions in Indonesia and I hope we respect each other," she said.

"Four years of waiting is quite long," said Susyana Suwadie who heads the cathedral's museum, adding she was overwhelmed by emotions as she awaited the Pope's visit.

"This important historic moment is finally happening."

Some are hopeful the Pope's inter-religious meeting would propel changes on a grassroots level.

Thomas Ulun Ismoyo, a Catholic Priest who is also the spokesperson for the Pope Francis Visitation Committee in Indonesia, said religious leaders in Indonesia played a very significant role because the masses listened to them.

He hoped the Pope's visit would "lead to something good" and advocated for a better world where humanity and social justice are prized.

About 87 per cent of the country's 280 million people are Muslim, however, it has the third-largest Christian population in Asia after the Philippines and China.

Only 2.9 per cent of the total population is Catholic.

Francis will be the third Pope to visit Indonesia. The trip was originally planned for 2020 but was called off because of the COVID-19 pandemic.