Church in West Papua, yesterday and today

Father Frans Lieshout, the first missionary in the Baliem Valley, used to say: "Before the arrival of the Gospel, God also spoke through the culture, traditions and language of the Papuan people."

This is a beautiful image of the Melanesian people who have lived for fifty thousand years in harmony with God and nature in the western half of the New Guinea island in the Pacific, commonly called West Papua. 

West Papua refers to the western half of the island of New Guinea. It includes the six Indonesian provinces of Papua, Papua Barat, Papua Tengah, Papua Pegunungan, Papua Selatan and Papua Barat Daya.

Fruitful Evangelism

West Papua is often referred to as a land of the Gospel: 95% of West Papuans are Christians despite recent evangelization. Generally speaking, we can say that two thirds of them are Protestant and one third are Catholic.   

Although Spanish and Portuguese missionaries visited West Papua in the 16th century, the Church was not established until the mid-19th century, in the midst of Dutch colonization. The first Protestant missionaries, Carl Wilhelm Ottow and Johann Gottlob Geissler, Germans, arrived in 1855, while the first Catholic missionary, Father Cornelis Lecocq d'Armandville, French-born Dutch, arrived in 1895.

Evangelization went smoothly through inculturation. In less than a century, almost all West Papuans became Christians. The work carried out by Western missionaries contributed greatly to the emergence of a national consciousness transcending tribal interests. Christian boarding schools founded at the beginning of the 20th century shaped the patriotism of West Papuan youth.

 

The West Papuan “Morning Star” flag, hoisted on December 1, 1961.

Short-lived independence

On December 1, 1961, West Papuan independence was proclaimed. The colonial state of Dutch New Guinea became the independent state of West Papua, with the transfer of full sovereignty by the Queen of the Netherlands planned ten years later. The West Papuan national flag, the Morning Star, blessed by Mgr Rudolf Staverman, then bishop of Hollandia, now Jayapura, was raised in front of the local parliament.

Unfortunately, West Papuan independence did not last long. In August 1962, decolonization was interrupted by high tensions between the Netherlands and Indonesia. The latter, formerly called the Dutch East Indies, had become independent from the Netherlands around fifteen years earlier. Sukarno, Indonesia's first president, claimed West Papua as part of Indonesian territory. Fearing an escalation of conflict, the United States, then under President John F. Kennedy, pressured the Netherlands to cede West Papua to Indonesia through the United Nations. 

West Papuans were forced to become Indonesian citizens. The erasure of West Papuan memory was achieved through a massive burning of Papuan history books, archives and national attributes. West Papuan elites who refused to collaborate with Jakarta were systematically eliminated. Thousands of West Papuans fled to neighboring Papua New Guinea, Australia and even to the Netherlands. 

Indonesian soldiers pose in front of a Papuan they shot.

Violent recolonization

Since 1963, the daily lives of West Papuans have been marked by various forms of violence perpetrated by the Indonesian government and army. Some sources estimate that more than 500,000 West Papuans were killed during six decades of Indonesian military operations. Faced with all these atrocities, what has the Church done for the Papuans? Unfortunately, not much. 

At the time of the transfer of power to Indonesia, Protestant missionaries, mainly Dutch, returned to their country. The Catholic missionaries remained, but powerless in the face of the brutality of the Indonesian army. Bishop Staverman resigned in protest against the persecution of West Papuans and the fake UN-sponsored 1969 referendum, which was approved by only 1,025 Papuans out of 800,000, under pressure from the Indonesian military. 

Indonesian pastors and priests were sent to replace Western missionaries. The West Papuan Melanesian Church then transformed into an Indonesian Church. The Churches, both Protestant and Catholic, were led to cooperate with the Indonesian authorities. Only a few local Christian denominations, members of the Papuan Church Council, have taken a position in favor of West Papuan independence. West Papuan Catholics represent approximately 10% of Catholics in Indonesia. However, of the 34 Indonesian bishops, only one is West Papuan.

In 2020, around 100 West Papuan priests, feeling marginalized, issued an open statement questioning the attitude of Indonesian bishops who appeared to support the Indonesian government rather than the West Papuan people. 

Mgr Yanuarius You, Bishop of Jayapura, West Papua (2023-present).

New Shepherd, New Hope 

On February 2, 2023, Yanuarius Matopai You, a West Papuan priest, was ordained bishop of Jayapura, one of the five dioceses of West Papua. Thanks to Bishop You, the West Papuan Church has gradually become emboldened to advocate for issues of justice, such as the seizure of customary lands for the benefit of the Indonesian government or multinational companies. Indeed, West Papua is rich in natural resources. In addition to its fertile soils and dense forests, its mineral reserves are considerable. The Mount Grasberg concession managed by PT Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of the American giant Freeport McMoRan, operates the largest gold mine and the third largest copper mine in the world. 

Without openly supporting the independence of West Papua, Bishop You leads peaceful resistance. He regularly makes pastoral visits to urge the indigenous population not to sell their land under any circumstances. He encourages them to return to noble traditional values ​​and to live off the land. Uniquely, he launched a call for peace by ringing the bells of all the churches in his diocese every day at 3 p.m. Bishop You is a tireless defender of dialogue for peace. Furthermore, he also pays particular attention to education, which has long been neglected. 

Today, 600,000 young Papuans are out of school due to poverty and prolonged armed conflict. Worse still, the literacy rate in West Papua is so low that 30% of children cannot read! While the government subsidized Christian schools during the Dutch colonial period, this is no longer the case under the Indonesian government. The latter favors public schools and Islamic madrassas. In many rural areas, the role of teacher has been taken over by Indonesian military personnel.

The Indonesian Ministry of Education's curriculum, which emphasizes theory over practice, is difficult to adapt to the daily context of indigenous Papuan populations. Faced with this challenge, a number of Christian schools have revived the boarding system which respects local wisdom. Unfortunately, whatever the efforts made, the West Papuan church has always faced financial problems: the solidarity of Indonesian Christians is very limited. Additionally, funding for foreign NGOs is restricted by the Indonesian government. Hospitals and church clinics in West Papua face similar challenges.

Catholic school in West Papua, 2023.

Challenges of the Church in West Papua 

The Catholic Church in West Papua is 130 years old, but it remains dominated by non-Papuans. The seat of the Diocese of Timika, where the Freeport mines are located, has been vacant for five years. It seems that the hierarchy of the Indonesian Church takes a dim view of the attribution of important positions to West Papuan priests. 

The Indonesian Catholic Church adheres to the patriotic principle of being "100 percent Catholic, 100 percent Indonesian". Thus, the bishops of the archipelago seem to fear that the indigenization of the hierarchy within the Church in West Papua will bring greater support to the West Papuan independence cause. The mysterious deaths of a number of key church officials in West Papua raise big questions. This is the case of Bishop John Philip Saklil, who died suddenly in 2019. The support of this former bishop of Timika for the West Papuan independence cause is beyond doubt. Likewise, P. Neles Tebay, initiator of the Jakarta-Papua dialogue died the same year. The killing of two West Papuan catechists in Intan Jaya by Indonesian soldiers in 2020 was never investigated. 

The West Papuan question has never been discussed fully and thoroughly within the plenary assembly of Indonesian bishops. Clearly, the Indonesian Catholic Church pays little attention to the rights of West Papuans. As for the Communion of Protestant Churches in Indonesia, despite its pro-West Papuan rhetoric, still hinders the efforts of West Papuan freedom fighters with the World Council of Churches. 

Today, due to the massive settlement of Indonesian migrants from overpopulated islands such as Java and Sulawesi, West Papuans have become a minority, representing less than 50% of the total population of Indonesian Papua. In 2055, the Church will celebrate the bicentenary of the arrival of the Gospel in West Papua. The question is: will West Papua still remain a Christian land at that time? And more fundamentally, will West Papuan Christians survive under a Muslim-majority Indonesia? In Jayapura, West Papua's main city, the sound of the muezzin is now more audible than church bells.