(02 June 08 - RV) Bishops from the South East Asian Nation of Malaysia begun their
Ad Limina pilgrimage to Rome Monday.
There are
around 800,000 Catholics in Malaysia - approximately 3% of the total population. The
country is divided into nine dioceses including three archdioceses, Kuala Lumpur,
Kuching and Kota Kinabalu. We spoke to the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur MURPHY PAKIAM
about his meeting with the Holy Father:
“The Church in Malaysia is diverse,
it has four races, four languages four cultures. The Holy Father was happy to hear
that we are forming them into a community of God’s people and bringing them to well
beyond their racial, linguistic, cultural barriers to form one community of God’s
people. Then he was surprised and happy to know that our priests have to speak at
least three languages to preach the World of God to the people. He understands very
well when I said that we have no time to teach them Latin and that this great move
that is in Europe to bring Latin back does not work for people in the small young
Church in Malaysia. He was surprised to hear of missionaries coming as far as Malaysia
in the attempts to bring the Tridentine rite here. He was happy to learn also that
we are moving a lot with inter-religious dialogue, more than dialogue of coming together
of religious leaders because we are Hindus, Sheiks, Buddhists Muslims and so forth
and he was happy that I had gone for a trip to China and that there was more than
just talk of building relationships of friendships among the different religious leaders,
because it is a good way of proceeding to put into action the Churches teaching in
Nostra Aetate”.