Indonesian authorities on high alert after church attacks

Police in Indonesia are investigating a worrying surge in attacks or attempted attacks on churches and police stations in Central Java over the past week. Since 30 November, police have found and defused bombs at three churches and three police stations, while one church has been firebombed and another shot at.

The Archbishop of Semarang has called the entire Catholic community "to remain calm" after the explosion of two bombs in the church of Christ the King on 7 December. The explosives were placed in two milk cans, along with nails and small stones.

On the same day, two other letter bombs were found in nearby Surakarta: the first in a yard and the second near the police station.

“Maybe it is a preparation for Christmas,” says Jesuit Father Ignatius Ismartono, coordinator for the Crisis and Reconciliation Service of the Bishops’ Conference of Indonesia. “Later, during the Christmas mass and the Christmas festivities, we always invite police to keep guard of our churches.”

Fr Ismartono says that ever since the coordinated Christmas Eve bombings in 2000 – in which 18 people were killed – the church in Indonesia has had to include security expenses in its Christmas budget.

But Fr Ismartono told Vatican Radio that in some small cities, Muslim youths offer to protect the church free of charge as a gesture of “solidarity and friendship.”

Listen to report by Kelsea Brennan-Wessels: