Beyond the Ambiguity of Local Goverment to Protect Religious Freedom: A New House of Worship Proposal Problem in Indonesia

Abstract

Currently, problems related with constructing a new worship place and renovating it have been much more contentious especially in the area where minority religious group becomes much bigger. This phenomenon has happened in West Bandung regency of West Java Province where Catholic group need more suitable church. The old church is not enough anymore to accommodate mass ritual. However, rejection from local people was occurred. To respond worship place building, Indonesian government has issued a regulation namely joint ministerial decree between the Ministry of Religious Affairs and The Ministry of Home Affairs) number 9 & 8/2006. However, the implementation of the regulation is not always on the track due to the local situation including misunderstanding among local people and local government’s political will. As a result, some worship places can be built normally, while some others cannot. Based on qualitative research that was conducted in October 2018, the authors tried to explore the reason behind the rejection of constructing a new Catholic church in West Bandung. Its results show that theoretically the local leaders really understand their duty to legalize and authorize the documents for the new worship place proposal. But, practically the letter of legalization is not being released due to due to the pressure from local residents whereby the church is planned to be built.