Miri Indoor Stadium became a gathering place for more than 6,000 Catholics on 10 October, as the local diocese marked its 50th anniversary with a thanksgiving Mass.
People came from its 14 parishes, alongside visitors from Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia. For a milestone with a local address, the attendance reached well beyond one neighbourhood.
Bishop Richard Ng led the Mass with more than 20 priests, according to Utusan Borneo’s report. The celebration brought together the communities that make up the diocese, rather than marking the anniversary in just one parish church.
Fifty years of the diocese, older roots for the community
The report traces the area’s Catholic missionary roots to Mill Hill missionaries in the 1880s. That is a useful distinction: the anniversary belongs to the diocese’s institutional history, while the religious community’s local story goes back further.
A 50-year celebration does not mean people first practised their faith in Miri 50 years ago. Different dates can belong to the arrival of a mission, the establishment of a parish and the creation of a diocese.
Vatican diplomatic representative Monsignor Marcel Šmejkal also attended. The report described this as his first Borneo visit since taking up his Malaysia and Timor-Leste role on 1 May 2025.
A future building was part of the day
Bishop Ng said plans for a new St Joseph’s Cathedral had been approved, with tenders expected soon. Construction was targeted for early 2027 and expected to take about three years, at a site by the Miri Bypass.
Those are project plans, rather than a completed building visitors can enter today. The next visible milestones will be the tender and construction work.
For this anniversary, the venue was the stadium and the focal point was the shared Mass. The gathering put thousands of people from different parishes in one place before the diocese’s next major building takes shape.
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