Pope urges climate action, unity at Jakarta mosque

What happened

Pope Francis met with fellow religious leaders yesterday at Southeast Asia's largest mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia. The pope and the mosque's top cleric, Grand Imam Nasaruddin Umar, signed a joint declaration urging Catholics and Muslims to encourage their leaders to fight climate change and religious intolerance.

Who said what

The visit to Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population, highlighted two pillars of Francis' papacy: the environment and interfaith dialogue. The declaration he and Umar signed at Jakarta's Istiqlal Mosque urged "all people of good will to take decisive action" to protect the planet from human-caused climate change and said religion should be used to resolve conflicts, never abused to justify violence.

The "Istiqlal Declaration" was the latest of several joint communiqués Pope Francis has signed with Muslim leaders, including on a historic 2019 trip to the Arabian peninsula and a 2021 visit to Iraq. The Jakarta encounter, "rich with symbolic meaning and personal touches," showed the "personal side" of that Muslim outreach, The Associated Press said, "with Francis and Umar — the aged pope and the youthful imam — showing a clear affinity for one another."

What next?

The pope will leave Indonesia on Friday for Papua New Guinea, the next stop in his "ambitious 12-day journey" through Southeast Asia and Oceania, Reuters said. He is scheduled to return to Rome on Sept. 13.

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