In his book "Travels of Friar Odoric of Pordenone", he visited several places in today's Indonesia: Sumatra, Java, and Banjarmasin in Borneo, between 1318 and 1330.

At that time the Catholic church was not yet established in the region, with Hinduism and Buddhism being the religions of the majority of the population.

They came for the spice but Catholic missionaries soon arrived in the region, most notably Francis Xavier who worked in Ambon, Ternate and Morotai (Halmahera) in 1546–1547.

In 1613 Solor also fell to the Dutch, and Catholic mission activities declined in Flores and Timor, even though these were still under Portuguese administration.

Larantuka in the island of Flores was a particularly important mission field under the Jesuits because the freedom of the Catholic Church was guaranteed there under an 1859 treaty with Portugal, which settled conflicting territorial claims in the region.

Many Batak people in the interior of North Sumatra adopted Catholicism at this time, even though authorities banned Catholic missionaries in other parts of the province.

Portuguese explorers arrived in the Maluku Islands in 1534, with the goal of converting the natives to Catholicism and to obtain valuable spices endemic to the region.

The Netherlands, like Britain, had a staunchly Protestant government at the time, which extended to the VOC; even though there were many Dutch Catholics, they had little influence.

In 1613 Solor also fell to the Dutch, and Catholic mission activity was reduced in Flores and Timor, which were still under Portuguese administration.

In 1624, Father Egidius d'Abreu SJ was executed in Batavia during the administration of Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen, for celebrating Mass in prison.

Father Alexander de Rhodes, a French Jesuit who invented the Vietnamese westernized alphabet system, was forced to watch his cross and Mass accessories burned underneath where two convicted thieves were just hung to their deaths.

[7] At the end of the 18th century Western Europe saw intense warfare between France and Great Britain and their respective allies.

The change of politics in the Netherlands, mainly because of the accession of Louis Bonaparte, a fervent Catholic, brought a positive effect.

On 8 May 1807, the pope in Rome was given permission from King Louis to establish an Apostolic Prefecture of East Indies in Batavia.

His effort showed little progress until 1904 when four chiefs (the heads of the town) from the Kalibawang region came to his house and demanded that he catechize them.

This place is now called Sendangsono in Muntilan, district Magelang, Central Java, near the border of the province of DI Yogyakarta.

In 1918, all Catholic schools were put under the jurisdiction of an institute named "Yayasan Kanisius", which produced the first priests and bishops of Indonesia.

On 20 December 1948, Father Sandjaja and Brother Hermanus Bouwens SJ were killed in a village called Kembaran, near Muntilan, when Dutch soldiers attacked Semarang.

[10] Catholicism and other minority religions have experienced enormous growth especially in areas inhabited by large numbers of Chinese Indonesians and ethnic Javanese.

[10] This growth may also be attributed to increased migration to the capital from Christian parts of Indonesia when in 1960 there were not so many from the regions residing in Jakarta as now.

However, former president Abdurrahman Wahid, himself a leader of Nahdatul Ulama, one of the biggest Muslim organisations in Indonesia, made several contributions in reconciling the simmering antipathy among the different religious groups.

In 2006, the Bishops' Conference established Caritas Indonesia, also known as Karina, as the official humanitarian relief organisation of the Indonesian Church.

The country's religious composition remains a politically charged issue; as some Christians, Hindus, and members of other minority faiths argue that the census undercounted non-Muslims.

The results stated that 86.7% of Indonesians are Muslims, 10.72% Christians (7.6% Protestants, 3.12% Roman Catholic), 1.74% Hindus, 0.77% Buddhists and 0.07% others.