BORNEO SETTENTRIONALE, APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE of. - By a decree of Propaganda of 4 Sept. 1855, an apostolic prefecture was erected in British Borneo « in insula Labuan eiusque dependentis additis aliis insulae Borneo regionibus indipendentibus » and entrusted to Fr Carlo Cuarteron, who arrived at Labuan with two fathers of the Foreign Missions of Milan in 1857. When these subsequently passed, in 1858, to the apostolic vicariate of Hong-Kong, Cuarteron remained at Labuan until 1879, devoting himself chiefly to the liberation of numerous Filipino Christians enslaved by pirates. In 1880 the prefecture
was transferred to the Society of St Joseph of Mill Hill (London), whose missionaries arrived there in 1881. On 5 Sept. 1927 the prefecture of Labuan and North Borneo was divided upon the erection of that of Sarawak, and assumed the name of North Borneo.
Area of the territory (British Borneo, the Sultanate of Brunei, and Labuan Island): 86,838.45 sq. km.; total population 300,000 inhabitants, Catholics 12,955; Protestants in British Borneo 5,000; Muslims there 70,713; pagans in British Borneo 200,000. There are 13 principal and 19 secondary stations, directed by 26 priests and three Mill Hill brothers; 44 sisters (St Joseph of Patricroft, Manchester, and Discalced Carmelites of Madrid), 13 catechists, and 60 teachers serving 32 elementary schools (2,100 pupils); a minor seminary for Chinese.
Evangelization is advancing despite the shortage of personnel and material resources. The inaccessibility of the more remote areas hinders complete penetration among the Dusun of British Borneo; here the opposition of the Muslim Murut is pronounced, as is that of the Islamic element in Brunei.