BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN (UCAN) -- The Catholic Church in the oil-rich Islamic kingdom of Brunei Darussalam has progressed slowly but surely in the past decade, says the head of the local Church.

The Brunei Church faced a crisis in 1991 when it could no longer obtain visa extensions for two Catholic missionary priests. Monsignor Cornelius Sim, now apostolic prefect of Brunei, was the only local priest left to serve three parishes. Despite his solitude, he pledged there would be "no let up" in service to the faithful.

The situation has since improved, but progress has been slow.

In 1992, Bruneian Father Ivan Fang of St. Joseph's Missionary Society of Mill Hill was assigned to his home country to help alleviate the priest shortage. Ordained in 1985, Father Fang served outside the country before his return and the possibility his superiors may move him out still remains.

Brunei had been under the jurisdiction of Miri diocese in the neighboring Malaysian state of Sarawak but in 1998, the Holy See elevated the Brunei Church to the level of Apostolic Prefecture and appointed Monsignor Sim as prefect.

Monsignor Sim told UCA News Aug. 28 that with the establishment of the prefecture, the Church in Brunei has learned "to chart a somewhat tentative course with all the excitement and growing pains that accompany a new ecclesiastical circumscription."

The ordination of a third local priest, Father Paul Shie, in 1999 finally enabled each of the three parishes in Seria, Kuala Belait and Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital, to have a resident pastor.

Recalling his difficulties crisscrossing the country to provide pastoral care, Monsignor Sim said, "The arrival of Father Fang in 1993 meant less rushing around for me. However, I still had to look after Seria and Kuala Belait parishes until Father Shie was ordained."

Robert Leong, a Bruneian in training at Blessed John XXIII seminary in Weston, Massachusetts, the United States, will be ordained deacon next January. "We hope he will become a priest by August 2003," Monsignor Sim said.

Another seminarian, Arin Sugit, now in his second year of philosophy studies at St. Francis Xavier Major Seminary in Singapore, will spend four more years studying theology before being ordained, probably in 2007.

Meanwhile, the Catholic population has increased from an estimated 13,000 in 1991 to some 20,000, but the increase is largely due to the growing number of transient workers.

Many local Catholic families emigrated, mainly to Canada and Australia, in the past decade, and the Church estimates that only 3,000 Catholics are locals.

The rest are mostly Filipinos, Malaysians and South Asians. This means Brunei has about seven migrant Catholics for every local Catholic. It may also explain the weak response over the years to repeated calls for priestly and Religious vocations.

The last nun in Brunei died in 1997, but there was great joy on Aug. 10 when Sister Philomena Yapp from the Bandar Seri Begawan parish took perpetual vows as a member of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary in Singapore.

However, Sister Yapp will not be assigned to Brunei as there are no other nuns to form a Religious community with her, so she will work initially in the United States.

"At the same time, we are most keen to have Religious brothers. However, we would be starting from ground zero, as we have not had any before," Monsignor Sim said. "It is difficult to promote this without brothers here to serve as examples. The same can be said about promoting Religious vocations for women."

Such are the conditions under which the Catholic Church operates in this country, where the government actively promotes the national philosophy of a "Malay Muslim monarchy."

Islam is the official religion and plays a central role in the life of Malays, who constitute 68 percent of Brunei's 330,700 population, according to a mid-1999 government estimate.

For Monsignor Sim, this means the Church "has a challenging role to play in living out Gospel values while maintaining good relations and dialoging with people of other faiths and cultural backgrounds."

Other Religious believers in the state include Buddhists and Christians, the latter including Catholics, Anglicans and evangelical groups.

The 11-member government Cabinet has been headed by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah since Brunei achieved full independence from the British in 1984. He serves as prime minister, finance minister and defense minister.

The current sultan represents one of the oldest continuous ruling dynasties in the world. During the 14th-16th centuries, Brunei was the seat of a powerful sultanate that extended over the present Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak on Borneo Island, and the southern regions of the Philippines, now known as Mindanao. By the 19th century, however, the Brunei empire had been whittled away through wars, piracy and European colonial expansion.

This monarchic state depends heavily on revenues from crude oil and natural gas to finance its development programs. It is the third largest oil producer in Southeast Asia with a production of 163,000 barrels a day, and the fourth largest producer of liquefied natural gas in the world.

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