Forming A Catholic Spiritual Unit, Army Chief Of Staff General Maruli Meets Mgr Ignatius Cardinal Suharyo

Army Chief Of Staff General Maruli met the Diocese of Mgr Ignatius Cardinal Suharyo (Ist)

JAKARTA - Army Chief of Staff General Maruli Simanjuntak received a visit from Mgr. Ignatius Cardinal Suharyo as Bishop of Catholics in the TNI and Polri (Ordinariatus Castrensis Indonesia/OCI). The visit of the Bishop to Headquarters, Jakarta was accompanied by Father Yos Bintoro, Pr (TNI AU Colonel) as Deputy Bishop, Lt. Gen. Pur Yogo Triyono, and Brigadier General Pur Yohanes Wahyu, Tuesday 2 April.

On that occasion, several things were conveyed regarding the needs of Catholics in the Indonesian Army with the presence of Catholic clergy (people) qualified by Pastor and Katekis.

Since 2012 until now, the Father's qualification of Rohkat has not even been available within the Indonesian Army. This is because when the recruitment of Pa PK is the age of the priests above the entry requirements and the title of the Scholars of Philosophy (S.Fil.) has not been accommodated in the nomenclature of the Pa PK recruitment.

"The Organization of Military Diocese in Indonesia has been appointed by the Holy Throne of the Vatican since 1949 and received by the Government of the Republic of Indonesia. At that time, Sri Sultan HB IX as the Minister of Defense of the Indonesian War Force formed a Spiritual Care Unit for Religions in APRI (Nov 1949), "added the Bishop.

The Army Chief of Staff accompanied by Aspers, Asrena, Kadisbintalad and Kasubdisbuntalohkat supported the preparation of Pastors in this year's Pa PK recruitment.

"Catholic mental development is indeed needed by preparing the allocation of Pa PK's acceptance from a source of Catholic clergy qualified by Pastor and Katekis. We will prepare it," said the Army Chief of Staff.

Responding to this, Mgr. Suharyo said, only in the TNI AD, the clergy with the Pastor's qualification did not yet exist. In AU, AL and Polri already exist.

Father Yos added that when carrying out the BKO Task Force in the East Team (1998-1999) and now also involved in the Damai Resolution effort in Papua. Lt. Gen. Retired Yogo Triyono, who had served as Pangdam XVII/Cendrawasih, also said that the presence of spiritualists was vital to approach with his heart and win the minds of the Papuan people.

So the task of the Indonesian Army is not only to take up arms to maintain sovereignty, but also to bring the soft power of the Indonesian Army to be more professional, responsive, integrative and adaptive in facing the challenges of TNI's increasingly complex tasks in the future.

After exchanging souvenirs, the Army Chief of Staff requested that the movement of assistance in providing clean water can also be accommodated during the pastoral visit of Mr. Bishop of OCI to remote areas to visit TNI units serving in national boundaries and prone to conflict. Hopefully, the cooperation between OCI and the Indonesian Army will further improve the spiritual welfare of the community in general and bring the personality character of Catholics in the TNIAD environment to be stronger, more steadfast and present a sincere and simple character of knights.