“A hidden Church,” “not noisy;” as small as “a Fiat 500,” but alive, which envisions its apostolate above all through schools and help for migrants. This is the image of the Church of Brunei, depicted by the new cardinal- designate Cornelius Sim speaking with AsiaNews via Zoom. Despite being among the smallest churches in Southeast Asia – indeed, perhaps precisely for this reason – Pope Francis wanted to reserve a Cardinal’s hat for Archbishop Sim during the next consistory on 28 November. Unfortunately, the new cardinal will not be able to be present at the ceremony in Rome, due to the Covid-19 lockdown.
“We are a minority Church and this makes us prudent. Not so much because we are discriminated against… Like in any family gathering, small children should be quiet to let the elders talk. So we are quiet. And we, being small, accept our role: if the dishes have to be washed, we do it; if the floor has to be swept, we do it; we do what is required of us.
As a Church we have three small parishes and a mission station. We also have some schools, linked to the parish. Most of our social apostolate takes place through the school, which was opened in the 1930s. School is where our presence started. And where the Church has been established. The Church was actually present here in the first half of the 1800s, thanks to a PIME father [Fr Antonio Riva, in the Barambang mission; Fr Ignazio Borgazzi in Labuan – ed] but after three or four years, those priests were called to Hong Kong and their attempt did not bear much fruit, until 1920, when the Mill Hill missionaries arrived from Sabah (in present-day Malaysia.) The missionaries started a small school. My grandfather was one of the first to be baptized and he was one of the first Catholics in the nation.
And so the Church has always been involved in school, in education, which is not a partisan education, but an open one: 70 percent and more of the students are non-Catholics. There are Muslims, Buddhists, people of different faiths, or people without any faith. Our schools are renowned for the quality of the education they offer. Our teachers are academically bright and prepared. The teachers are local, but also international: they come from Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, …
We are the smallest Church in ASEAN. Perhaps only Laos has a very small Church like ours.
We have about 16 thousand faithful. There were more, but due to the economic crisis, many people left the country. On Sundays, 3-4 thousand people arrive at every mass.”
–AsiaNews