Introduction to the Indonesian Catholics
On Indonesia's favorite minorities
It’s 2025, and Indonesian Catholics are in the best possible position. Compared positively to the now unpopular political leaders, the cardinal and archbishops had become the paragons of virtue. The late Pope Francis is remembered not just as a champion of the poor and a friend of Indonesia but also as a defender of Palestine. It is true that now and then the opening of a new church could invite protests, but I could confidently state that the public perception of the Catholic church is more positive in Indonesia than in most Western countries, let alone in other Muslim-majority states.
I understand if the world thinks Christianity is an oppressed religion in Indonesia, looking at comparative cases in other Muslim-majority countries. Many Christian Indonesians in the West had few positive things to share, at least until the 2000s. Even to this moment, other Christians in Southeast Asia would refuse to believe that Christians in Indonesia have it good.
The history of Christianity in Indonesia is as old as the Age of Exploration. The Portuguese fought Islamic kingdoms on their way to build ports from Africa to Japan, and the first Indonesian Catholics were eastern Indonesians baptized by Portuguese missionaries. Their descendants might keep their Portuguese surnames like Fernandes, Gomes, and Soares to this day, as many Catholic Indians in India, Malaysia, and Singapore do.
The Portuguese’s worst enemies after the Muslims were the Protestant Dutch, who had become the dominant force in the archipelago by the 18th century. The Dutch spread Protestantism in the 19th century, enabled by steamboats, knowledge of tropical medicine, and the necessity to educate native and biracial bureaucrats and officers. Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, and Pentecostal missionaries from Belgium, Germany, and the United States were also allowed to operate across the Dutch East Indies. The more the better.
My city of Bandung became a boomtown in the 1920s, and the Catholic cathedral, schools, and hospitals were built in that decade as Bandoeng was projected as the new capital of the Dutch East Indies. The Catholics consisted of southern Dutch, other Europeans (which might have included Italians, Irish, Belgians, Bavarians, and Austrians), southern Javanese, Eurasians, Chinese, and eastern islanders. My grandmothers, one Chinese and the other Javanese, were educated in Catholic schools.
It seems that the Indonesian Revolution decided the fate of Indonesian Catholics, with many Javanese Catholics siding with the republicans. In Indonesian historiography, especially among modern Catholics, this proves their moral righteousness. Perhaps those who served in the colonial military saw it was better to side with the revolution. Perhaps it was true that the Dutch managed the natives worse than the British, including being less cynical in exploiting religious and tribal differences (see India and Pakistan today).
Catholic Javanese became a part of the Indonesian elite and perhaps served as acceptable heirs to the Dutch tradition and connection to the West. That is to say that many Muslim Indonesian elites could also speak Dutch, enjoyed classical symphonies, and read European newsmagazines. Perhaps it also helps that both Catholic and Muslim Javanese keep their Hindu philosophies, spiritualities, and even names. The Catholics joined the Republic in imposing its rule over other islands throughout the 1950s.
My parents were baptized by 1960, and their mothers established Catholic traditions at home. Fish Friday. Lent and Advent months. Rosary and sacraments, and the parish priest as a midweek guest. Even when the Communists rose to power in the early 1960s, they did not directly challenge the Catholics, the way deadly disputes were taking place between communists and Muslim landowners.
Some communists and Catholics could bond over Russian literature (as well as Russian fighter jets), anti-Americanism, and cocktail parties. Some Catholics fought and died in the invasion of West Papua. Like the Indonesian Revolution, the Dutch won militarily but lost politically since, in both 1949 and 1962, the United States told the Netherlands to give up its colony.
The Army toppled the left-wing Sukarno government in 1966, and an anticommunist purge followed. The big bang of Catholicism followed as being secular, as many Chinese people worldwide are, became unacceptable. Instead of joining Buddhism as any foreigner would think, the Chinese converted to Christianity for several reasons. The American and European connections. The existence of rich Christian Chinese in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, and the West, as shown in Crazy Rich Asians. The military patronage.
Catholic literature flourished in the late 20th century with several flavors. The European satires. The Javanese spirituality combines Catholic and Hindu wisdom, existentialism, and the Bhagavad Gita. Magic realism and anticommunist liberalism. Think about the relations between the Catholic Church and Catholic artists in the US or Australia in those times, and you’d get the idea.
I entered the Catholic life as soon as I was baptized. In the 1990s, major changes took place. President Suharto presented himself as a Muslim and distanced himself from Catholic generals and advisors. The European priests were aging with no reinforcement coming. The face of Catholic Indonesia was changing from Javanese into Chinese, just as anti-Chinese sentiment was growing as a result of globalization. The younger priests and writers were embracing the Latin American Liberation Theology (it’s the Critical Theory for Catholics, really).
I could be the only one paying attention to the Liberation Theology contents in my Catholicism textbook in middle school. Oscar Romero and Rigoberta Menchu. The Uruguay Round (it wasn’t about soccer) and East Timor. Meanwhile, Evangelical Christianity was growing popular, and several Catholics also joined the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement, being holy rollers.
I brought my Liberation Theology and rosary to campus. A city church in Melbourne, St. Francis, is still packed with Chinese Indonesian students every Sunday, and a priest said it was the Indonesian students who saved the church from closure in 1995.
Remember the Charismatic Catholics? In my experience, in Australia in the 2000s, Javanese Chinese (as in Chinese who grew up in Java) huddled there. As I joined St. Francis’ Legion of Mary and the campus’ Catholic students’ association, I met Chinese Indonesians from Borneo and Sumatra who were more comfortable socializing with Singaporeans and Malaysians than with the Javanese Chinese.
And yes, it was in Australia I found for the first time that Catholic was disrespected by the public, that people not only had issues with the Pope and the church, but also with me being a practicing Catholic (obviously, no one had any issue with a practicing Muslim or Hindu). You know what Aussies think of the Catholic Church. Pedophiles. Homophobes. Fanatics. Right-wing nutjobs. Misogynists. Islamophobes, after 2003.
Other Catholic Indonesians had no problem with this. They didn’t talk to white Australians in the first place, and they had their support systems. Hot people in their support systems. Granted, I’m not a hot person myself, but the normal presence of hot people in Indonesian Charismatic groups came in contrast to a midday mass in university attended by elderly admin officers and shy students who immediately left. An Asian Australian friend did bring me to an Australian Catholic students’ gathering, where everyone but us was white and no one held a good conversation with the shy me.
Perhaps that was another reason I never bothered to fight to stay in Australia. Worse TV. Worse bistros and sushi. Worse environment for a practicing Catholic. So, it’s back to Indonesia with its hot Charismatic Catholics and packed churches on Sunday, and the public and media who didn’t say anything bad about the Church.
Long story short, I stopped trying a decade ago and became a liberal Catholic who was for gay marriage and female priesthood. I was even open to convert to Protestantism had there been a liberal Protestant church in Indonesia (even the Evangelical megachurches have female preachers), like the Australian Uniting or the European state churches.
Long story short, it’s the 2020s and I’m mutual with American Catholics who are conservative for Indonesian standards, but certainly not of the “Christ is King” variety (which is also unheard of in Indonesia). Indonesian Catholics are still renowned for their liberalism, which might not extend to gay acceptance but to feminism. Not extended to abortion rights, but to Free Palestine (whether as one of the two states, or from the river to the sea, is never discussed anymore after 2023).
Good for us, I reckon. For 8 million of us. And good for me, as in whichever timeline I am in, I’ll be a Catholic. Maybe more active in many of them.