by Piero Gheddo

Though suffering from a lack of priests and sisters, these are lively communities with many conversions, The tribal groups are asking for baptism and refusing to become muslims. Here is a report by Fr. Perio Gheddo that will be published in its entirety in the next issue of Mondo e Missione of June-July, 2004.

Kuching (AsiaNews) - Borneo is one of the largest islands in the world (the third largest). It is part of Malaysia and is two and a half times the size of Italy, but with only fifteen million inhabitants. It is a real paradise of untouched nature. The internal area still remains unexplored, and almost only the areas along the coast are inhabited. It is there that the Dayak dwell. These aborigines are coming out of prehistoric times and entering the modern world.

The most interesting aspect of the trip was the discovery of a church that is being born just like that in the Acts of the Apostles. Of the five dioceses in Malaysian Borneo, I visited three (Kuching, Kota Kinabalu and Keningua, besides the apostolic prefecture of Brunei). Everywhere there are young, lively communities whose growth is held back by a scarcity of priests and sisters: the Christians are recent converts and it is only with difficulty that they bring forth persons of consecrated life. The government forbids the entrance of foreign missionaries.

Father Christopher Laden, of the diocese of Kuching (the capital of the State of Sarawak), explained why the Dayak are becoming Christians: "It is because Jesus Christ and the Church explained who God is and promised eternal life. We Dayaks believe in God the Creator, but we don't know who he is: if he is good or bad, if he loves us or cares at all for us. Our belief is that after death there is nothing. Christianity gives us hope. The second reason is sociological. By becoming Christians, we enter into a community that helps us and creates brotherhood, whereas the old tribal community is disappearing. We Dayak refuse Islam because it is too far from our mentality and does not fit in with our beliefs.

The archdiocese of Kuching has around 150 thousand Catholics with 25 priests and ten parishes. Of these, five are in the city. The parish of Serian is very big. It has 36 thousand Catholics and three priests and about 80 chapels. The pastor is Father James Meehan, a Scot, who says that every year he has about 500 adult baptisms of converts. I asked him how he forms them. He said "Everything is done by the catechists and laypeople in various movements."

The Pastor of Bunan Gega, John Chung, has 500 baptisms each year. Two hundred of them are children of Catholics and three hundred are adult converts. He and his assistant have about fifty chapels to take care of. In my visit to this area of the Dayaks, they all seem to be Catholics. There is chapel in each village. The Muslims are few in the forest regions outside of Kuching. Conversions to Islam take place by marriage, business contacts, or because  assistance is promised in schooling or getting a job. Fr. John says that the aborigines choose Christianity because "when the encounter Christ, they experience a change in their personal, life as well as that of the family and the village."

At Keningau (Sabah) ,. The bishop Cornelius Piong remarked that, "My diocese has twelve priests and ten seminarians for more than 90 thousand Catholics. Every year there are about 1,500 adult baptisms. The priests and sisters are too few. We entrust most of our duties to the laity and to the basic Christian communities: the catechumens who join the community are prepared for baptism by the word, example, and also the commitment to service of the whole parish. Here in Shabah, Christians are free to evangelize, to convert the aborigines and the Chinese, and to build churches and other religious and social buildings.

Thirty years ago in Malaysian Borneo, there was one priest for every three thousand Catholics; today it is for every eight thousand. The diocese of Kota Kinabalu has 26 priests in pastoral activity for 220 thousand faithful with slightly less than 4 thousand baptisms per year, half of which are of adult converts. The conversion of the Dayak people to the Catholic Church (and to Protestant churches as well) is a mass movement, but if there were more priests, sisters, catechists, and financial means, the mission would be able to receive and form all the aborigines that desire to enter the flock of Christ.

Father William Sabang, the vicar general of the archdiocese of Kuching and rector of the seminary, says that the Christians of Borneo can teach something to our ancient churches. "Our Christians, with only a few priests, organized themselves from the very beginning for the needs of their communities: prayer meetings, catechesis, charity. A tradition was created and Catholics know that they should give some of their time to the Church. Besides that, they are inspired by a missionary spirit and they carry the word of God; they speak of Jesus Christ and the gospel; they invite others to come to the Church. Every parish has hundreds of adult baptisms each year that come by the efforts of the faithful. When I was in Italy, at times I was amazed at how the faithful complain about the Church, but they do little to evangelize: they don't take any initiatives and expect everything from the pastor. The reason why our Christians are more active and more fervent is this I believe: in general they are recent conversions, only a few come from Catholic families. Thus they experience in their lives the positive revolution brought by Christ in the families and in the communities in which they live. They feel the difference of living with or without Christ. This makes them enthusiastic in their faith and ready to make great sacrifices to serve the Church.

• malaysia
• borneo
• catholic
• church
• islam