“My path to the priesthood is a little bit weird,“ Brunei Neo-Cardinal Cornelius Sim told CruxNow.com (November 16), „I never wanted to be a priest. I kind of got hijacked into this job.”
Sim’s grandparents were the first Catholics in his village. After a very Catholic youth Sim grew distant from the Church.
He studied engineering in Dundee/Scotland and worked in Brunei. His father’s sudden death threw him into a crisis. He worked in Europe for a few years, but eventually returned feeling let down.
His parish priest convinced him to come back to church. Sim got involved in a charismatic group and went to study at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, „People think Steubenville is all flaky“ but there he received a „solid underpinning.“
When he came back to Brunei, a priest asked Sim to become a priest himself. Sim answered, „Oh, hell no!“
There are around 20,000 Catholics in Brunei.
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