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strong>Jan. 18, p. 1

The Catholic Diocese of Surabaya, East Java, is saying that the local office of the Religious Affairs Ministry has misrepresented its position on the religious education of Muslim
students at Catholic schools.

“We have been politicized and our statements have been spun by the ministry, as if we agreed to the request to provide Islamic instruction for Muslim students,” Rev. Agustinus Tri Budi Utomo, the diocese’s vicar-general, told The Jakarta Post via telephone on Thursday.

Your comments:

Indonesia’s five major religions are Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism (yes, I see you raising your hand), Hinduism (Balinese) and Buddhism (Theravada). Those are religions that have been “approved” by the government.

Indonesian elementary and secondary students memorize the names of holy books, prophets, titles of priests and names of temples, all modeled after Islamic monotheism.

Confucianism is supposed to be the sixth approved religion, but people only mention the five. I don’t know if Catholic and Protestant churches are “merged’” into Christianity or if people simply forget about Confucianism.

What about Judaism, Sikh or Tao? They are simply not “legal” religions. Heck, even Hinduism was just accepted in 1962 to accommodate the Balinese (no Indian-Indonesians in mind) and Buddhism is presented as Theravadan, although most Buddhists in Indonesia are Chinese who practice Mahayana Buddhism.

Since 1981, Chinese temples (fusing Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism) have been converted into Buddhist temples.

In short, religions in Indonesia are oversimplified and are forced to conform to an Islamic-style of monotheism, including Hinduism and Buddhism. And for some reason, Indonesia is quite hostile to eastern spirituality.

Mario Rustan

I think the government should refrain from mixing religion with law. This kind of enforcement truly shows that non-Muslims are second-class citizen in the eyes of the government.

Muslim parents who send their kids to non-Muslim schools are aware of what they’re signing-up for. Therefore, parents should be responsible for teaching Islam to their children.

What about non-religious schools? Will they be forced to teach all five major religions to their students? This is a big joke!

Vania

I’m originally from Europe and most schools are non-religious, but I had to learn about the five major religions for a few hours every week, for nine years.

All five received the same amount of attention by the school and everybody, regardless of our own religion, had to attend.

I don’t believe for a second that there are Muslim schools in Indonesia that teach Catholicism other religions.

They might mention other religions, but they don’t actually offer courses on those religions. Parents that put their Muslim kids in a Catholic school, made a choice likely based on quality of the education and that should be respected.

But to now try and change school curriculum based on private beliefs is just wrong!

Per Aldrin

It is unethical to impose the teaching other religions in a school dedicated to a religion (in this case Catholic school).

Philippe Andrews