Patrick Comerford
Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, Kuching, is the Roman Catholic cathedral of the Archdiocese of Kuching, the state capital of Sarawak. Kuching became as archdiocese in 1976 during the Papacy of Pope Paul VI, and Archbishop Simon Poh Hoon Seng has been the Archbishop of Kuching since 2017.
The first Saint Joseph’s hurch in Kuching was built in 1891 as a wooden structure in a Neo-Gothic style during the Brooke era in Sarawak. The cathedral’s large, sloping rooftop resembles a typical family home in Sarawak.
The Brooke family, who ruled Sarawak as the ‘White Rajahs’ for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, encouraged Christian missionaries, both Anglican and Roman Catholic, to come to Sarawak and to build churches.
These missionary activities began in the time of first British Rajah, Sir James Brooke, who ruled from 1841 to 1868, and the first Saint Joseph’s Church was built in 1891 with the approval of his successor Sir Charles Johnson Brooke (1829-1917), the Second Rajah (1868-1917).
The first group of missionary priests of Saint Joseph’s Missionaries, or the Mill Hill Fathers, came to Sarawak in 1881. On the Feast of Saint Joseph, 19 March 1881, Father Edmund Dunn from Dublin, Father Aloysius Goossens and Father David Kilty set out from London for Singapore. They arrived in May and waited the arrival of their superior, Monsignor Thomas Jackson, who had until then been an army chaplain in Afghanistan.
Eventually Jackson arrived in Singapore and he and David Kilty then sailed to Labuan, while Dunn and Goossens took a steamer to Kuching, arriving on 16 July 1881. They were the first Catholic priests to set foot on Sarawak, and were welcomed by the Second Rajah, Sir Charles Brooke, who offered them temporary accommodation in an empty house opposite the District Court.
Jackson joined them on 24 August, and as Monsignor Thomas Jackson he would become the second Apostolic Prefect of Borneo.
Later, the Rajah offered the Mill Hill missionaries a permanent site of 10 acres for their mission house, now the site of Saint Joseph’s Secondary School (SMK Saint Joseph). Saint Joseph’s School was started by the Mill Hill Fathers in 1882. The all-girls school, Saint Teresa’s, was established in 1885, and the school's first principal was Sister Teresa Cheetham (1885-1902).
When these Catholic priests arrived in Sarawak there were very few formal educational facilities, apart from a few Chinese-medium schools and Saint Thomas’ Anglican School, founded in Kuching in 1848.
Saint Joseph’s School was named after the patron of the Mill Hill Fathers. The school was to cater for children irrespective of race, religion or social-economic status.
A simple wooden church, separate from the school building, was built nearby in 1883. It marked the humble beginnings of what is Saint Joseph’s Cathedral today.
More Mill Hill missionary priests arrived, and the simple wooden church was replaced by a new and larger Saint Joseph’s Church. It was built in a ‘neo-gothic’ style by Chinese labourers and it opened on 1 November 1891.
The Sarawak Gazette described Saint Joseph’s Church as ‘semi-gothic’ architecturally. It was 92 ft long with an altar recess or apse of 8 ft, the central nave was 24 ft wide, each aisle was 19 ft wide, and the belfry was 80 ft high.
Two years after Jackson’s resignation, Father Edmund Dunn was appointed the third Prefect Apostolic of Labuan and Borneo in 1897. He was born in Dolphin’s Barn, Dublin, on 22 November 1857 and was ordained in Hammersmith in 1880.
Dunn gradually widened the influence of the mission throughout Sarawak. With additional priests from Mill Hill, mission stations were established during his time in Labuan, Papar, Kinuta, Jesselton, Inobong, Putatan, Penampang, Sandakan, Bundu Kuala Penyu, Kudat and Tawau.
Rome divided the prefecture in 1927 into the Prefecture of Kuching and the Prefecture of North Borneo. The Prefecture of North Borneo covered North Borneo, Labuan and Brunei, and Dunn was appointed Prefect Apostolic of Kuching. He died on 30 December 1933.
During the Japanese occupation of Sarawak, the priests who were British and Dutch were detained at the Batu Lintang concentration camp. The school building was taken over by the Japanese who paid rental to the Catholic Mission for use by the navy and army.
The original Saint Joseph’s Church remained in use until it was replaced by a new Saint Joseph’s Church in 1969. The original Saint Joseph’s was later demolished and the bell tower stands on its site.
Saint Joseph’s Church was consecrated in 1969 and became a cathedral in 1976 when the Archdiocese of Kuching was established, with Peter Chung Hoan Ting as the first Archbishop of Kuching.
The cathedral has an unusual roof structure, similar to that of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Singapore. The roof is made up of very dense belian wood. At night, the cathedral is illuminated with colourful halogen lights. The church hall has a seating capacity for 700, offering ample space for social events.
The neighbouring cemetery is of significance, with the graves of 21 Iban warriors who died during the Malayan emergency (1948-1960) or war of independence.
Today, Catholics number about 15 per cent of the population of the Borneo states in Malaysia. They make up an ecclesiastical province, with an archdiocese, three suffragan sees and a Vicariate Apostolic.
The schools established by Catholic missionaries in Sarawak include Saint Joseph’s and Saint Theresa’s schools in Kuching, the Sacred Heart and Catholic High Schools in Sibu, Saint Anthony’s School in Sarikei, Saint Patrick’s School in Mukah and Saint Joseph’s School in Miri.
The first brick school building was three storeys high, and was opened in 1894 by Rajah Charles Brooke. It is now known as the Mill Hill Block. The Sarawak Gazette described the new Saint Joseph’s building in 1895 as ‘the largest private work carried out in 1894 and indeed the largest building in Kuching.’
Saint Joseph’s School started again in 1945 after Sarawak’s liberation from the Japanese. The De La Salle Brothers, mainly from Ireland, started arriving in Sarawak in the early 1950s,and took over the management of Saint Joseph’s School and other schools in Sarawak.
A substantial number of past and present leaders of Sarawak and Malaysia are graduates of Saint Joseph’s School.
Meanwhile, the original Saint Joseph’s Church, built in Kuching in 1891 in a ‘neo-gothic’ or ‘semi-gothic’ style, is not forgotten: it is said to have inspired the design of the Saint Peter’s Church being built in Padungan in Kuching and expected to open early next year.
• Weekend Masses at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral are: Saturday Sunset, 6 pm (English); Sunday, 5 pm (English), 7 am (English), 9 am (Mandarin), 11 am (BM). Weekday Masses, Monday to Friday, are at 5:30 pm (English).
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