THURSDAY
March 30, 2000
volume 11, no. 64
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INDONESIA BISHOPS REFUSE ISLAMIC INSTRUCTION IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

    JAKARTA (CWNews.com/Fides) - The curriculum in Catholic schools in Indonesia will not include Islamic instruction, the Indonesian Catholic Bishops Conference said this week, rejecting government pressure in the most populous Muslim nation in the world.

    In October 1999, the Ministers of Education and Religious Affairs sent a joint letter to Catholic schools requesting that instruction in the Muslim faith be added to the school program. The proposal was motivated by the fact that 40 percent of the pupils at Catholic schools are Muslim.

    Jesuit Father Sumaryo, head of the Bishops Conference's Education Commission, said: "Islamic instruction is practically unfeasible in Catholic schools. The controversy of possibly teaching Islamic instruction for the Muslims students, who frequented Catholic schools, has been the concern of Catholic headmasters, particularly in Yogyakarta, one of the cradles of the Catholic community in Indonesia, but all attempts failed."

    Sister Antoni Hari Surwidiyanti, PIJ, the principal of the Sang Timur high school in Yogyakarta, said government officials have strongly urged her, along with dozens of colleagues from other Catholic schools, to teach Islam. "I refused because this pressure stems from a unilateral decision," she said. Sister Margaretha Surani CB, added that government officials have threatened to remove some government-subsidized teachers from the Christian schools, and put bureaucratic pressure on diverse services for these schools.

    Father Pujasumarta, vicar general of Semarang diocese, said that in keeping with the teaching of Vatican II, the local Church seeks to enhance relations with and understanding of other religions. "However," he said, "if Islamic instruction is eventually taught in Catholic schools, the private schools must be guaranteed the right to appoint who teaches this religious instruction."

    "What we object to is that such pressure against the Catholic schools has been politically motivated as sectarian tendency emerged among the people in the country," he added. "The Bishop's call to enhance religious harmony has also been twisted into demanding Islamic instruction in Catholic schools," he said referring to the content of unsigned leaflets widespread among the people in Central Java.

          

March 30, 2000
volume 11, no. 60
NEWS & VIEWS

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