The Vatican’s Moral Silence on West Papua: A Betrayal of the Gospel

The Vatican’s Moral Silence on West Papua: 

A Betrayal of the Gospel

The Vatican holds a unique position on the world stage — a sovereign state, yes, but also the moral voice of the global Catholic Church. Guided not by political self-interest but by universal values of justice, peace, and human dignity, the Holy See commands respect in diplomatic affairs precisely because of its spiritual authority. Or so it claims.

Yet, the Vatican’s persistent silence on the long-suffering people of West Papua — a predominantly Christian population enduring six decades of repression under Indonesian rule — raises a fundamental question: Why has the Vicar of Christ withheld his voice from one of the world's most forgotten, and most Christian, crises?

A Church Called to Speak

The Church has long taught that silence in the face of injustice is complicity. As the Second Vatican Council declares in Gaudium et Spes:

“The Church… is obliged to scrutinize the signs of the times and interpret them in the light of the Gospel” (GS §4).

“Christians must be aware of their special vocation to be the leaven in the world, acting as witnesses of justice and peace” (GS §43).

Pope Paul VI reiterated this in Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975), stating:

“Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world… is a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel” (EN §31).

Pope Francis, too, insists that the Church cannot remain neutral in the face of oppression. In Fratelli Tutti (2020), he states:

“Indifference is a form of complicity… We cannot remain silent before the suffering of so many” (FT §68, §70).

So why the silence on West Papua?

The Vatican Knows — and Has Known for Decades

The claim that the Vatican lacks information is unsustainable. The Holy See has one of the most sophisticated diplomatic corps in the world, maintaining a global network of nuncios, religious orders, and lay observers.

In West Papua, Dutch Catholic missionaries like Bishop Rudolf Staverman and Bishop Herman Munninghoff raised early alarms about Indonesian military atrocities following the forced transfer of sovereignty in the 1960s. The Vatican knew about the fraudulent “Act of Free Choice” in 1969, which violated the principle of self-determination upheld by the UN Charter and Catholic Social Teaching (Pacem in Terris, §94–96).

More recently, in 2018, Franciscans International, a recognized Catholic NGO with consultative status at the UN, submitted a detailed report to Pope Francis outlining West Papua’s humanitarian and ecological crisis. These reports echoed earlier calls by Papuan clergy like Bishop John Philip Saklil and Fr. Neles Tebay, both of whom called for justice and dialogue — and died under murky circumstances.

The Church knows. The people of West Papua know it knows.

Diplomacy or Cowardice?

Why, then, this strategic silence?

Defenders of Vatican diplomacy invoke the legacy of Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, who championed the "Ostpolitik" of the Holy See — a cautious, behind-the-scenes approach to engaging Communist regimes during the Cold War. Casaroli famously spoke of the “martyrdom of patience.”

But patience is not always virtue. As Pope John Paul II clarified in Redemptor Hominis:

“The Church cannot remain silent about what touches the human person, his rights and duties” (RH §17).

And Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium (2013) warns against a Church that becomes self-referential and timid:

“An evangelizing community gets involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives… it embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others” (EG §24).

If the Church does not speak when Christians are being displaced, dispossessed, and exterminated, when will it speak?

A Flock Abandoned

Today, indigenous West Papuans make up less than 40% of the population in their own homeland due to Indonesian transmigration. They are systematically marginalized: economically, politically, and spiritually. The church bells in Jayapura are now drowned out by the muezzin’s call — a symbol not of religious coexistence, but of forced cultural displacement.

Yet, the Catholic Church in Indonesia largely echoes the government line, invoking the slogan “100% Catholic, 100% Indonesian” — a motto that has too often meant 0% Papuan.

Where are the shepherds?

Where is the voice of the Pope — the one who in Querida Amazonia (2020) passionately defended the rights of indigenous peoples as “custodians of creation” (QA §42–50)?

Where is that same zeal for West Papua, where forests are razed and rivers poisoned by the Freeport mine, while Papuan bodies vanish into mass graves?

The Silence is Not of God!

The Vatican’s silence must not be confused with the will of God.

Jesus did not say, “Remain neutral.” He said:

“What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the rooftops.” (Matthew 10:27)

The Gospel demands a prophetic Church, one that stands by the oppressed, not just in rhetoric but in reality.

In West Papua, the Gospel arrived over a century ago. Now, as the people cry out in despair, the Church must remember its covenant.

It is time for the Pope to speak the truth — not as a diplomat, but as a disciple.

From Political Silence to Prophetic Witness

If the Holy See is to retain its credibility as a moral voice on the world stage, it must find the courage to name the violence in West Papua. Not with inflammatory rhetoric, but with the clear light of Catholic Social Teaching, the Gospel, and the Cross.

Because silence is not peace.

And diplomacy without justice is betrayal.