JAKARTA: When Pope Francis visits Indonesia next week, he will stop by a mosque in Jakarta that has an unusual feature - a tunnel connecting it to the city's Catholic cathedral, as part of a push for interfaith harmony on his 12-day Asia-Pacific tour.

The 28.3-metre "Tunnel of Friendship", connecting the iconic Istiqlal mosque to the Our Lady of the Assumption cathedral, was built by the government in 2020 as a symbol of religious harmony, a theme the global head of the Catholic church has also emphasised on his travels during his 11-year reign.

Pope Francis, 87, arrives on Tuesday in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, on the first leg of the longest trip of his papacy that will also take him to Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Singapore. The plans have drawn concerns over his increasing health problems.

The pope is scheduled to participate in an interfaith meeting at the mosque, the largest in Southeast Asia, and to visit the tunnel, which features windows to let in light and inscribed art on the walls but is not yet open to the public.

"It's extraordinary that the Catholics' number one figure is coming," said Nasaruddin Umar, the grand imam of the Istiqlal, whose vast parking lot is often open to churchgoers during major events. "Whatever your religion is, let's respect our guest."

Only about 3 per cent of Indonesia's population of 280 million are Catholic, while nearly 90 per cent are Muslim.

The pope is scheduled to meet outgoing President Joko Widodo and hold a mass service at a Jakarta stadium, which is expected to be attended by more than 80,000 people, said Rev. Thomas Ulun Ismoyo, an Indonesian church official.

The visit has excited Indonesian Catholics, who have not experienced a papal visit in more than three decades.

"If I could meet him, I could only bow before him. I couldn't even bring myself to hold his hand," said Maria Regina Widyastuti Sasongko, a 77-year-old Catholic woman who sells items such as statues and t-shirts bearing the pope's face.

Indonesia has been visited by two popes before - the first, Pope Paul VI in a 1970 trip to Jakarta and in 1989, Pope John Paul II, who visited Jakarta and four other cities.

SYMBOL OF FRIENDSHIP; CHEQUERED PAST

Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, Indonesia's religious affairs minister, said the pope's visit was a symbol of friendship among people of all religions in Indonesia.

"The pope's visit makes Indonesia the barometer of peace and a pillar of tolerance," he told Reuters.

Still Indonesia has had a chequered history with religious harmony.

Catholicism came to the country by way of Portuguese missionaries in its eastern area in the 16th century, but historians say it was banned during Dutch colonial rule for about two centuries in favour of Protestantism.

The Vatican officially named a diplomatic representative in Indonesia in the 1940s.

And in modern Indonesia, officially a secular state, minority religions can still face discrimination.

The US religious freedom watchdog has said that "Indonesia's religious freedom conditions remained poor" in 2023, citing several regulations including ones that led to closures of places of worship, including churches.

Andreas Harsono, the Indonesia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said the roots of religious intolerance, and church closures, were the laws that facilitate them.

But for Sasongko, the Catholic woman selling papal merchandise, the arrival of the pope signifies hope for unity.

"His visit can transform people to love one another," she said.

  - Reuters