Catholic Bishop Dr Paul Tan Chee Ing welcomed the return of Malay and Iban language bibles that were seized by Selangor Muslim authorities earlier this year as "balm on lacerated Christian feelings."

 

"Christians give praise and thanks to God for an action that ends a particularly bad phase of their recent experience in this country," said the head of the Catholic Church in the Melaka-Johor diocese.

 

"I thank His Highness, the Sultan of Selangor, for his beneficence and I praise the Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali for his intercession," said the Jesuit-trained prelate.

 

Bishop Paul Tan said the Christian community was already "feeling beleaguered" before the consignment of bibles was seized from the premises of the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) by officers from the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department in January.

 

"The seizure was more bruising for already lacerated feelings among Christians stemming from repeated rounds of Christian bashing at the hands of irresponsible elements.

 

"Unfounded accusations of Christian proselytising of Muslims, of wanting to Christianise Malaysia, and the threat to burn bibles - all accentuated the community's feeling of being beleaguered," explained the bishop.

 

He said that when the bibles were seized, "a new bottom was reached and a sense of worse to come took hold."

 

"Now the news that the holy books have been returned sustains Christians' conviction that we are a people of hope, always looking for the light at the end of a dark passage," said the prelate.

All 351 copies of the Bible were handed over to the Association of Churches in Sarawak (ACS), on behalf of BSM, at Istana Alam Shah, Klang yesterday.

Present at the event were Sultan of Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah and Menteri Besar Azmin Ali.