A reflection on the Pope’s latest trip to the “peripheries of the world”.

After more than ten years of pontificate, we understand what the main task that this pope has given himself is: to evangelize God, that is, to make God Good News for the people who believe in him but are tempted to venerate him as a “God with us” and “against others,” as a God who leads to war and even inspires terrorism.
This is a temptation from which even Christians are not exempt: just read what is happening in Ukraine among the Orthodox, who have lived in peace until now, and between the Orthodox and Greek Catholics, who are always ready to make claims. Francis’ work has this breadth of horizons that the Catholics of our ecclesiastical provinces, who want to be the centre of Catholicism, are not always able to understand.

Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo, left, with Pope Francis and the Imam of the Istiqlal Mosque. Vatican Media

This man – who at 87 years of age shows such courage, vigour, tenacity and conviction that we cannot help but call faith – has completed a long and tiring journey to the outskirts of the world: distant islands, Indonesia where the largest Muslim population lives. He went as far as those lands to make a peace alliance that he signed with the Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar, of the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta: let there be religious harmony, peace between religions for the good of all humanity.
Yes, in the vision of Pope Francis the horizon is all of humanity, not just the church!The Pope did not speak explicitly of Christ to the people during this trip, but every time he announced justice, peace, reconciliation and forgiveness, he did nothing but repeat, without ever naming him, the message of Christ his Lord.
Moreover, in the letter Fratelli Tutti he already indicated and asked for a brotherhood that was not limited to Christians (such was the traditional vision of the church), but to everyone.  And precisely for this reason the first quality of the church is to be a home, a place of welcome, not to increase converts, but to offer a humanity reconciled to that Lord God in whom some believe. And the Pope insisted once again on the multi-coloured wisdom of God who wants not uniformity but the difference of cultures, he repeated that differences are a wealth, indeed the true treasure for Indonesia, but they must not become a reason for conflict.

Pope Francis’ Mass in Papua New Guinea. Vatican Media

For this reason, he included in his speech a reflection on the tunnel that connects the Istiqlal mosque in Jakarta, the largest in Southeast Asia, and the Catholic cathedral, one in front of the other: “It is the ‘Tunnel of Friendship’, a place of dialogue and encounter. For this reason, there is no darkness but light, because it is illuminated by the friendship and harmony of those citizens who meet other citizens of different confessions and beliefs and bow in friendship”.
The news that reached us through the media was scarce, it did not give much importance to what the Pope did as he did it truly far away, at the extreme peripheries of the world. But let’s tell the truth: this pastoral action of Francis is disturbing, it is little felt and is also contested by those who remind him that his task is the preaching of the Gospel done in an open way, but without the obsession of dialogue. And this, as we have always written, will mean a refusal because the Gospel scandalizes and for now woe to those who evangelize God. Jesus has already been condemned for having done this. And it will be so again and always… (Open Photo: Pope Francis is greeted by children in traditional dress on his arrival in Jakarta, Indonesia. Vatican Media)

Enzo Bianchi
Theologian
Former prior of the monastic community of Bose (Italy)