By Anna Yap fsp
KUALA LUMPUR — Overflowing crowds came to pay their last respects to a “faithful, true to his name” priest at the Sacred Heart Church at Peel Road here on 11 Dec 2023.
Born in 1955, Father Jestus Pereira was the sixth of eight children. He was an actor (Retrospektif: Madu Beracun, 1976), before he entered the Singapore Minor Seminary in 1976 and went on to Penang College General in 1978. Ordained in 1987, he served several parishes in the Kuala Lumpur Archdiocese. In 1994, he took up a licentiate course in Canon Law in Rome, followed by a two-year-course (1997-1998) at the Institute of Tribunal Practice in Sydney and Brisbane, Australia. He also held terms as Judicial Vicar at the Peninsular Malaysia Ecclesiastical Tribunal (PMET) with jurisdiction for the Kota Kinabalu Archdiocese and Brunei Vicariate. From 1999-2014, he was the chancellor of KL Archdiocese. Over the years, he was also the Ecclesiastical Assistant for the Catholic Lawyers Society and the Archdiocesan Bahasa Malaysia Language Apostolate.
His last posting (2022-2023) was as parish priest of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Port Dickson when he passed away on 6 Dec 2023.
Archbishop Julian Leow presided over the concelebrated funeral Mass while the homilist was Fr Lawrence Andrew sj. In his homily, Fr Andrew noted that the deceased was a kind, caring and dedicated priest “faithful and true to his name” who had set many people free from their anguish and sorrow in the marital sphere.
In his turn, Abp Leow pointed out in the course of his work as parish priest and also in the ecclesiastical tribunal, the deceased might have stepped on many toes by his straightforwardness, and so he apologised on the deceased’s behalf and accepted the apologies of those who did not have the opportunity to be reconciled with the deceased.
