Pope Francis in Singapore: visiting a small but influential Catholic Church
Pope
Francis receives a bouquet of flowers from a group of children as he
arrives Sept. 11, 2024, in Singapore, the last stop on his four-nation
visit to Asia and the Pacific. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)Pope Francis’ final stop on his 12-day journey is the island nation of Singapore, where he touched down on the afternoon of Wednesday, Sept. 11.
Francis is the second pope to visit Singapore. John Paul II came on Nov. 20, 1986, stopping by for five hours to celebrate Mass in the national stadium as a part of an Asia-Pacific tour.
After visiting three impoverished countries—Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Indonesia—Francis now arrives in a very wealthy country; Singapore is the world’s number three financial hub and the first financial hub in the Asia-Pacific region.
Pope Francis is “popular among Catholics here, but may also be [seen as] influential among the general public, which sees him as an international leader for peace, harmony and equality,” Francis Lim, S.J., the regional superior of the Malaysia-Singapore Region, told America.
The pope will then be driven by car to the Jesuit-run St. Francis Xavier retreat center, where he will reside during his sojourn here. That evening, he will have a private conversation at the center with the 11 Jesuits working in Singapore.
The first Jesuit community in this city-state was established in 1954; the Jesuits opened the retreat center in 1997. It is perhaps significant that Francis, the first Jesuit pope, has opted to reside at the center dedicated to St. Francis Xavier and not at the Holy See’s nunciature in the city-state, which was like too small to host the pope and those who need to be with him. St. Francis Xavier arrived on the island of Ambon in the Indonesian archipelago, about 1,700 miles from Singapore, in 1546 and preached the Gospel in the area for almost a year before moving on to other parts of Asia. This missionary Jesuit pope, who has made several visits to Asia, is today following in the footsteps of that first great Jesuit missionary to Asia.
On Thursday, the pope will meet with Singapore’s president and prime minister before addressing an audience of 1,000 people from the state authorities, representatives of civil society and the diplomatic corps.
Later, Francis will celebrate Mass at the city-state’s national stadium. The stadium holds 55,000, which, according to Father Lim, amounts to “one-third of the number of Catholics that go to church weekly, so there has been much demand for tickets.”
On his final morning, Friday, Sept. 13, Pope Francis will meet with Bishop William Seng Chye Goh, Singapore’s first cardinal, as well as clergy and religious. Afterward, he will visit a group of the sick and elderly and then address an interreligious meeting with young people in one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world.
Following a farewell ceremony at the airport, he will make the over-12-hour flight back to Rome. En route, he will hold a press conference.
The birth of a first-world city-state
Singapore is a city-state at the southern end of the Malay Peninsula in Asia, between the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea, 85 miles north of the equator. It is composed of the main island, Singapore Island, which is approximately 280 square miles, and more than 60 smaller islands.
The name “Singapore” comes from “Singa Pura,” which means “Lion City” in Sanskrit, but today the state is also known as “Garden City” because of its elaborate parks and tree-lined streets.
It has a population of some 5.7 million, of whom just over three million are citizens. Most are ethnically Chinese (74 percent), Malay (13.5 percent) or Indian (9 percent), while a smaller number are other Asians and Europeans. It has one of the highest standards of living in the world and very good education and health care systems. Singapore also has many strict rules, and Transparency International ranks it as one of the least corrupt countries in the world.
It has four official languages, reflecting the country’s multicultural identity and heritage: English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil. Most Singaporeans are bilingual, but English is the first language taught in schools and the language used by the government.
Modern Singapore was founded in 1819 by the British colonial official Stamford Raffles as a trading post of the British Empire. The British built a large naval base there after World War I. Japan took over the island state in 1942, but the British regained control after World War II. Singapore started to govern itself in 1959, and British colonial rule ended in 1963. After briefly joining the newly created federation of Malaysia, Singapore became independent on Aug. 9, 1965, and adopted a British-style parliamentary system of government.
Lee Kuan Yew ruled the country as prime minister with a strong hand from 1959 to 1990 and oversaw its rapid economic growth and development. Singapore helped start ASEAN in 1967 and joined the Non-Aligned Movement in 1970.
Lee Kuan Yew was considered a dictator by many, but others credit him for Singapore’s rapid economic growth. José Magadia, S.J., the Filipino-born general counselor for the Asia-Pacific region at the Jesuit Curia in Rome, told America: “He made Singapore into a first-world country despite the fact that it had no natural resources, and depends on exports, imports and especially the financial sector. It is an economic hub today.”
Still, not everyone in the country benefited from Lee Kuan Yew’s economic policies, and when labor, justice and peace advocates challenged his policies, he had 10 collaborators of the Catholic workers’ movement arrested in 1987 under the “Internal Security Act,” including Vincent Cheng, the secretary of the church’s justice and peace commission. He also expelled Catholic journalists under threat of arrest. He accused both Catholic and Protestant bodies of acting as lackeys of Marxism and communism because of their work for social and human rights.
Father Magadia described modern-day Singapore as “a very small, highly developed, first-world class state,” and “a major crossroads for culture and for trading, with a big community of businessmen.” He said that because Singapore already had an excellent university, “the Jesuits saw no need to build their own. Instead, they run a hall of residence, a parish and a retreat house.” The pope will reside at that retreat house during his stay.
In an interview with Fides News Agency on the eve of the visit, Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, said of Singapore, “It is wonderful to see a people who have reached such a level of professionalism and technological vanguard in a few years, and with limited resources, also by virtue of a sense of discipline.”
Religion in Singapore
“Religion doesn’t play a big role in modern Singapore,” Father Lim said in a Zoom conference call with journalists on the eve of the papal visit. “It is a very secularized society; 20 percent of the population profess no religion.”
According to figures provided by Vatican Media, 33 percent of Singapore’s population adhere to Buddhism, 18 percent are Christian (Catholics account for 3.5 percent of the population), Muslims 15 percent, Taoists 11 percent and Hindus 5 percent.
Commenting on the Christian presence in Singapore, Father Lim said, “Over 20 percent of the Chinese community are Christian, and almost all the Malay community is Christian, while 1 percent of the Indian community is Christian.” He also noted that “less than 50 percent of Catholics go to church every week.”
“The Catholic Church is very advanced in interreligious dialogue, and Christians organize interreligious prayer services for peace,” he added.
“The government works to weed out religious extremism in the country,” he said, “and you cannot speak out against other religions. People live together in harmony. You cannot see intolerance here. The government made a big effort in the 1960s to ensure religious harmony.”
In his interview, Cardinal Tagle said: “The government in Singapore guarantees freedoms to all communities of worshippers and protects them from attacks and disrespectful acts. Offenses against religion are severely punished.”
Father Lim said the number of migrant workers has grown in Singapore in concert with the demands of the economic system. There were more than 440,000 migrant workers in Singapore in 2023, according to the Ministry of Manpower. These workers form the backbone of Singapore’s construction and marine industries. Most come from Vietnam and Bangladesh to work in construction and gardening. Women migrants mainly come from the Philippines—20,000 of them—and they make significant contributions to parish life.
However, “there are no refugees in Singapore because of strict controls; it’s very difficult to enter the country,” Father Lim said.
Asked why the Singapore government was so keen for Pope Francis to visit, Father Lim pointed to the Catholic Church’s role in education. “Catholic missionaries came in the 1800s and started schools,” he said. “Many government officials have attended Catholic schools and are grateful for the quality education they received. Catholics also take care of elderly people. So Lee Kuan Yew was very respectful of the Catholic church for this. He introduced the two-child policy and so [there is an] aging population. But the Catholic Church was against this, and later in life he said, ‘I regret I didn’t listen to the Catholic Church.’”
The current prime minister is a Christian, Father Lim said. Having watched the government ministers who took the oath of office on a Bible, he estimates that nearly 40 percent of them are Christian, and one of them is Catholic.
The Holy See has a nunciature in Singapore, whereas the island nation has an ambassador to the Holy See, Janet Guat Har Ang, but does not have a physical office in Rome. She and the minister of culture will welcome the pope at the airport on his arrival and is expected to be there when he departs from Singapore airport for Rome on the morning of Sept. 13.
Singapore is the 65th country that Francis has visited since becoming pope, and he plans to visit two more—Luxembourg and Belgium—at the end of the month.
Gerard O’Connell is America’s Vatican correspondent and author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History. He has been covering the Vatican since 1985.
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