Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kuala Lumpur (Agenzia Fides) - 1857-2007: 150 years of continual evangelisation in conditions of poverty, itinerant catechesis, caring for the sick, being close to families. This is the experience of Italian missionaries of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), Mill Hill Missionaries, Jesuits, Franciscans, Monfort Missionaries and other in Borneo, today split into north - juridically belonging to Malaysia and the small Brunei Sultanate - and centre and south, a province of Indonesia.
Today mission in Malaysian Borneo is difficult and sometimes impossible, since the government refuses entrance to foreign missionaries so needed by local Catholic Church. In the Indonesian part despite difficult environmental conditions, mission progresses thanks to the presence of various religious orders.
Nevertheless in Malaysian Borneo, despite the scarcity of priest (requested by the bishops of all five dioceses), many Animists choose to become Christians and the parishes register numerous adult baptisms mainly of Dayak people and part of the pastoral work is entrusted to lay people and Basic Ecclesial Communities.
The seed of the Gospel was sown in this land 150 by Italian PIME missionaries sent by Propaganda Fide who, after a long and difficult journey of 18 months on 14 April 1857 arrived on the island of Labuan since 1846 a British possession off the coast of northern Borneo. The small group was led by Mgr Carlos Cuarteron (1816-1880), former Spanish navy captain ordained a priest in Rome on 9 April 1854 at the age of 38 and on 4 September 1855 appointed Apostolic Prefect of Labuan, northern Borneo and its dependent areas. He was accompanied by two priests of the Missionary Institute of Milan (today PIME), Fr. Antonio Riva (1823-1862) and Fr Ignazio Borgazzi (1829-1878). The small group was joined in Manila by PIME fathers returning from the first mission in Oceania. These Fathers remained in Labuan only for a few months and then joined other confreres in Hong Kong.
The first seed sown in 1857, was nurtured from 1881 onwards by the Mill Hill Missionaries from England. Today there are more than 600,000 Catholics in the dioceses of Borneo, Sarawak and Sabah (Malaysia) and Brunei (182.000sq km, 5,734,000 population). In August Pope Benedict XVI created the seventh diocese, Sandakan on the west coast facing the Philippines.
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first Catholic missionaries in Labuan, and first evangelisation in northern Borneo, the diocese of Kota Kinabalu, of which the Island of Labuan is also part, organised a meeting to recall this important date in the history of evangelisation. The meeting was attended by leading members of the local Church and the PIME Institute. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 24 /9/2007 righe 34 parole 356)
