Catholic Party

Catholic Party was a political party for Indonesia's Catholics from colonial times to the 1970s. In 1967 members were involved in debates concerning religious freedom in the New Order and the influence of missionaries on the nation. In the following decade it merged with other parties to form the Indonesian Democratic Party, which has since been renamed the Indonesian Democratic Vanguard Party. History Pre-independence The participation of Catholics in Indonesia begun in the 1920s. In 1923, Fredericus Soetrisno Harjadi, Ignatius Joseph Kasimo, and others formed the Javan Catholic Political Union. In the political situation of the Dutch East Indies, PPKD joined itself with the Indische Katholieke Partij (IKP), a federation of Catholic organization in the Dutch East Indies, which was formed in November 1918. Even though PPKD was more oriented to Javanese nationalism, IKP itself was more oriented to the interests of the Dutch Catholics. This conflict of interest led PPKD to split from the IKP, and on 22 February 1925, PPKD transformed itself into a political party. Later, PPKD would transform its name into the Indonesian Catholic Political Union . Inside the Volksraad, PPKI and IKP were separated from each other. PPKI was located in the left group, a group of political parties in Volksraad consisting of Indonesians, while IKP was located in middle group, which consisted of Dutch. The left group would later form the Indonesian Political Federation in 1939.