Indonesian authorities confirm UiTM priest and nun were 'fake'

Indonesian church authorities have confirmed that the two Indonesian speakers at a recent Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) seminar were not who they claimed to be.

The Malaysian Insider today reported that Insan L.S. Mokoginta, who had claimed to be a former Catholic priest and converted to Islam, was never a priest.

The Bishops Conference of Indonesia executive secretary Father Edy Purwanto was quoted as saying that that he had “no information or data on Mokoginta”.

Mokoginta had recently told some 1,000 students during the May 6 seminar that he was a former Catholic priest who converted to Islam in 1976.

At the seminar about "The Threat of Christianisation", Mokoginta said that "every follower of Jesus should convert to Islam otherwise it would be a betrayal to Him".

The same authorities also confirmed that another speaker, Irena Handono, who claimed she was a former Catholic nun, had not completed her “education".

Purwanto said checks done by the Indonesian church revealed that Irene was only briefly with the Congregation of the Ursuline Sisters as a novice.

Meanwhile, controversial lecturer Dr Ridhuan Tee Abdullah had commented that the UiTM seminar on Allah and Christology was necessary to combat Christianisation in the country.

In his column today titled “The real enemy is before your eyes” published by Sinar Harian, Ridhuan wrote that the contents of the seminar were nowhere as terrible as the criticism Church leaders have leveled towards Muslims.

“The bashing (in the seminar) was not as harsh as a priest’s speech in a church, which I have previously exposed. It’s a pity no Muslim has ever visited a church to see how they condemn Islam,” Ridhuan wrote in the Malay-language daily.