Pope Francis shares jovial meeting with brother Jesuits in Jakarta

Pope Francis met with fellow members of the Jesuit Order during his first full day in Indonesia which was spent in the capital city of Jakarta.

“The Pope spoke about the Society, the importance of discernment and prayer,” Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro told Vatican News on 4 September. “The younger ones asked him where he finds time to pray and he told some anecdotes.”

He added : “The Pope loves to speak with his brothers; relaxed and in a free and spontaneous way.”

The Pope usually speaks with members of the Jesuits during any of his international visits. Spadaro – the editor of La Civiltà Cattolica and a consulter at the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication – usually publishes a full account of these meetings in his news magazine.

On the morning of 4 September, Francis met with around 200 members of the Society of Jesus, which Spadaro described as a “familiar, relaxed and acute meeting”.

The meeting lasted an hour, and Spadaro told Vatican News it was punctuated by a spontaneous dialogue with questions and answers, personal confidences and some jokes.

“It was a family moment, as is usual,” explained Spadaro. “Pope Francis is always very relaxed, he feels at home.”

The Jesuit priest said the number of young Indonesian brothers caught the pontiff’s attention.

“It is perhaps the thing that struck me the most, [how] the Holy Father noticed how young the Jesuits present in formation in Indonesia are,” he explained.

The Jesuit priest said Francis emphasised the importance of young people and the contribution of Christians in the country. He said the Pope wanted to meet the young men training to be Jesuits.

“A young Society of Jesus which also [reflects] a young Church,” Spadaro told Vatican News.

He went on to say that the Pope “loves those Churches that I define as [at] ‘zero point’”, explaining that while Catholics only make up only about 3 per cent of the population, given the large size of Indonesia’s population, the small size proportionately of Catholics still equates to about 8 million people and a “significant presence within the country”.

Indonesia is the world’s fourth largest country overall, with a population of 275.5 million, who belong to around 1,330 different ethnic groups. Roughly 87 per cent of Indonesians are Muslim. Only 10 per cent of the population is Christian, with Catholics representing just 3.1 per cent of the population.

Spadaro added: “The goal of the Christian is to contribute to the growth of the country; to be like leaven kneaded into the dough: this is really important for the Pope.

“The message for Christians is that they collaborate fully for the common good, beyond the numbers; for the Holy Father, what matters is liveliness, generative capacity.”

Spadaro noted that the Pope will have a total of three meetings with Jesuits during his trip around the region – meeting also with members of the Order in Dili and Singapore.

“Both in the meeting this morning but also in the others we have had up to now, Pope Francis sees a possibility in this land, the possibility of harmony within a pluralistic context,” Spadaro explained.

“Even the president today spoke of harmony and pluralism. I believe there is hope here for such a threaten[ing] future, at a time when the world is divided and fractured.”

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Photo: Pope Francis meets with his fellow Jesuits serving in Indonesia in the country’s capital city of Jakarta, 4 September 2024. (Credit: Vatican Media.)

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