LABUAN, Malaysia (UCAN) -- The lone parish on Labuan Island, where Catholicism in eastern Malaysia started, has celebrated the 150th anniversary of the installation of the first Church leader for the region.

On Aug. 11, Blessed Sacrament Parish organized a pilgrimage to several parts of the island and an exhibition to commemorate the 1857 installation of Monsignor Don Carlos Cuarteron as the first head of the Prefecture Apostolic of Labuan and Borneo.

Labuan is a 98-square-kilometer federal territory about 1,520 kilometers east of Kuala Lumpur. It is located off the northern coast of Borneo, near the juncture of Sabah and Sarawak states. They and Labuan together form eastern Malaysia.

The Prefecture Apostolic of Labuan and Borneo was established in 1855, and Trinitarian Monsignor Cuarteron was installed as its first prefect two years later.

According to the website of Kota Kinabalu diocese, which now covers Labuan, Monsignor Cuarteron did missionary work with the help of Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) priests. He left in 1879, after which the mission was entrusted to the Mill Hill society. Other missioners arrived, and they built mission stations and schools.

The territory of the original prefecture is now divided among Kuching archdiocese and Sibu and Miri dioceses in Sarawak; Keningau, Kota Kinabalu and Sandakan dioceses based in Sabah; and Brunei apostolic vicariate, which covers Brunei, located on the northern Borneo coast near Labuan.

About 70 people took part in the Aug. 11 anniversary events, including Bishop John Lee of Kota Kinabalu, retired Archbishop Peter Chung of Kuching, Bishop Dominic Su of Sibu, PIME Fathers Mauro Mezzadonna and Mark Tardiff, and Mike Gibby, author of Crowned with the Stars, a biography of Monsignor Cuarteron. Representatives from other Christian Churches also took part.

Bishop Lee kicked off the pilgrimage by presiding over prayers at Blessed Sacrament Church. Then Father Cosmas Lee, a priest of Kota Kinabalu diocese, gave an introduction to the three sites on Labuan that the pilgrims would visit. All three are associated with Monsignor Cuarteron and his two PIME companions, Fathers Antonio Riva and Ignacio Borgazzi. The sites are all about a 10-minute bus ride from each other.

From the church, the people proceeded to Tanjung Batu, where the first Mass was celebrated, on April 19, 1857, in a chapel in the style of a Chinese pagoda. Five weeks later -- on May 26 -- the first baptisms in Labuan were held in the same chapel. Archbishop Chung led prayers there.

From Tanjung Batu they went to Victoria, the main town on Labuan, where Monsignor Cuarteron lived.

The missioner's thatch-roofed house was first built in 1857 on land given by the British colonial government, then rebuilt a number of times over the years. The first Mill Hill missioners here stayed in the same house after Monsignor Cuarteron's departure. In Victoria also stood a wooden chapel and a stone-and-brick church that was never completed. None of these buildings exist today. Bishop Su led prayers in the bus before the pilgrims disembarked at the sites where the buildings used to stand.

The pilgrimage then continued to the Botanical Garden and airport area, where a chapel built by Catholic soldiers used to be located.

Back at Blessed Sacrament Church, Bishop Lee led prayers concluding the pilgrimage. Afterward, the bishop opened an exhibition in Cuarteron Hall. The exhibition featured photos on the life and times of Monsignor Cuarteron and the "quadri paintings," eight oil paintings depicting local scenes that the missioner used in lobbying the Vatican to erect the prefecture.

Bishop Lee also presided at a thanksgiving Mass in the evening. Following this, Gibby made a short presentation on Monsignor Cuarteron. The anniversary celebration ended with the unveiling of a bust of the first prefect, a fellowship meal and presentations by parish groups.

Commemorations of the 150th anniversary of the local Church began with the unveiling of a memorial plaque of Monsignor Cuarteron on April 15.

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