Fr Greg Soetomo SJ receives the 2025 Religious Literacy Award from Minister of Religious Affairs Nasaruddin Umar in Jakarta on 21 November | Photo from the Ministry of Religious Affairs
“Grateful and delighted.” These were the first words expressed by Fr Greg Soetomo SJ during a ceremony honouring him as one of Indonesia’s Religious Literacy Figure of 2025. He was recognised for his contributions to interfaith dialogue and cross-faith literacy initiatives.
Fr Soetomo currently serves as the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific (JCAP) Coordinator for Dialogue with Islam and was the conference socius from 2020 to 2025.
The award ceremony, held in Jakarta on 21 November, marked the culmination of the 2025 Religious Literacy Festival, organised by the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia in collaboration with the College of Qur’anic Sciences (PTIQ) Jakarta under the theme “Weaving Togetherness, Spreading Love, and Caring for Creation”.
Fr Soetomo sees the award not merely as a personal accomplishment but as a symbolic affirmation of Indonesia’s growing openness and commitment to tolerance. He believes the festival has the potential to make a wide-reaching impact by cultivating religious literacy across the country.
“We need to highlight religious literacy so that people may once again become truly discerning. By ‘more discerning,’ I mean helping young people absorb knowledge in a balanced way—knowledge that will help build a harmonious society. Literacy, after all, encompasses the activities of reading, writing, and teaching,” he said.
He hopes that through the festival, more people can “return to reading and writing,” affirming that “literacy—when cultivated properly—can transform society for the better”.
Alongside Fr Soetomo, two other distinguished figures received awards: Prof Dr H Nur Syam MSi, recognised for advancing literacy that supports religious moderation, and Prof Dr Dra Hj Kembong Daeng MHum, honoured for preserving and developing religious literacy rooted in local wisdom.
The festival, which ran through October, featured a series of activities for students ranging from junior high to university levels. These included short-story writing competitions, poster and creative video contests, book discussions, short-story writing workshops, talk shows, and film screenings.
Minister of Religious Affairs Nasaruddin Umar, who presented the awards, expressed hope that the festival would inspire more literacy advocates committed to nurturing diversity and strengthening religious moderation in Indonesia. Congratulating all the awardees, he remarked: “Their works not only display creativity, but also embody essential religious, humanitarian, and national values—values that are increasingly vital in today’s digital era.”
The Ministry’s Secretary-General, Kamaruddin Amin, stated that the festival sought to instil values of religiosity, citizenship, environmental awareness, and humanity. “Participants were encouraged to express religious and humanitarian values through creative works that speak to the realities of our time, and to nurture a spirit of faith and togetherness within society,” he explained.
Fr Yusuf Edi Mulyono, SJ—Episcopal Vicar of the Archdiocese of Jakarta and Superior of the Rupert Mayer Jesuit Community, to which Fr Soetomo belongs—expressed heartfelt congratulations: “Praise be to God, and thank you, Fr Greg. Congratulations for this recognition from the Ministry of Religious Affairs. May it become a blessing for many.”
A Jesuit priest, Fr Soetomo completed his theological studies at Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and pursued Islamic studies up to the doctoral level at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta. He is the first Jesuit to pursue Islamic studies domestically at UIN Jakarta, following in the footsteps of Jesuits who studied Islam abroad, namely Alex Soesilo Wijoyo, Aloysius Adisusilo, St Sunardi, PD Eko Prasetyohadi, and JB Heru Prakosa.
Since 2009, Fr Soetomo has been involved in the annual nyantri immersion programme for Jesuit scholastics in various pesantren (Islamic boarding schools). In 2017, he became Coordinator for JCAP’s Dialogue with Islam, frequently facilitating visits for religious men and women from different countries to witness Indonesia’s distinctive interreligious life. “I am now assigned in Jakarta, accompanying Catholic students studying in West Jakarta,” he said.
Fr Soetomo has also authored and published several books, including Revitalizing the Social Thought of Hassan Hanafi (2015), A Catholic Priest at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah (2017), Language & Power in Islamic History (2017), and Revitalizing Islamic Social Thought (2018). He is currently preparing two volumes of an encyclopaedia on the relationship between the Catholic Church and Muslim communities in Indonesia.
