The Sacred Heart Cathedral sits in central Makassar, near both the city police headquarters and City Hall -- a location that speaks to how embedded the church is in the civic fabric of South Sulawesi's capital. CCTV footage captured three pedestrians and a car passing the gate moments before the explosion. The blast scattered debris across the street and left human remains at the scene. Within hours, Indonesian authorities identified one of the attackers as a member of a terrorist cell connected to the 2019 cathedral bombing in Jolo, Philippines. By the following day, police had identified both perpetrators: a married couple, wed only six or seven months earlier. They were confirmed members of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah, an ISIS-affiliated militant group. In the husband's home, police found a signed last will and testament expressing his willingness to die as a martyr.

The bombing triggered one of Indonesia's largest counterterrorism operations in years. Police launched raids across the archipelago -- in East Jakarta, Bekasi, Bima, and beyond. What they found went far deeper than a single attack. In Condet, East Jakarta, investigators discovered five armed but unexploded improvised explosive devices and enough precursor chemicals to manufacture up to 70 bombs. They also found uniforms and membership cards belonging to the Islamic Defenders Front, a fundamentalist organization the government had banned in December 2020 for declaring support for ISIS. One alleged bomb maker was identified as a founding member of the FPI's paramilitary wing. Another suspect held a senior position in the organization's jihad department. The investigation revealed that the Makassar attackers had pledged allegiance to ISIS at an FPI office in South Sulawesi, and that a JAD study group had been involved in selecting the target, mapping the cathedral, and planning the assault.

Nearly a month after the bombing, police arrested Munarman, the former general secretary of the FPI and a close associate of its leader, Muhammad Rizieq Shihab. Authorities charged him with concealing knowledge of the terrorist network and conspiring with militants. A subsequent raid on the former FPI headquarters in Jakarta turned up documents, banned organizational materials, and large quantities of potassium nitrate and acetone -- precursors for the explosive TATP. Munarman's trial, held behind closed doors in December 2021, brought further revelations about his involvement in the Makassar network and his past underground publications praising Al-Qaeda. Confessions from captured members of the Makassar cell suggested the bombing was partly motivated by the ongoing trial of Rizieq Shihab himself, alongside broader extremist ideology rooted in supremacism and anti-Chinese sentiment. The cathedral attack, it emerged, may have been one piece of a much larger plot.

The condemnations came swiftly and from across Indonesian society. President Joko Widodo called the attack inexcusable. The eldest daughter of former president Abdurrahman Wahid described it as a "wound of the nation." Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Islamic organization, declared that nothing justifies harming social harmony. Amnesty International called it "an insult to human rights principles." Makassar's mayor, Ramdhan Pomanto, urged residents to stop sharing photos of the carnage and personally called the cathedral's pastor to confirm no congregants had been killed. Three days later, a woman in a niqab attacked the National Police headquarters in Jakarta, underscoring the volatile security climate. But in Makassar, the response tilted toward solidarity rather than fear. The Sacred Heart Cathedral, built during the colonial era and the oldest church in a city that is predominantly Muslim, had survived. That survival carried its own kind of message about the resilience of Indonesia's tradition of religious coexistence.