Rev.

Msgr. Monsignor (; it, monsignore ) is an honorific form of address or title for certain male clergy members, usually members of the Roman Catholic Church. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian ''monsignore'', meaning "my lord". "Monsignor" ca ...

Carlos Cuarteron (1816 – 12 March 1880), was a Spanish mariner who later became a priest and established the first Roman Catholic missions in northern

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...

.Crowned with the Stars
(2005) by Mike Gibby Born in Cadiz to an Italian father and Spanish mother, Carlos went to sea at 13. He was based in the Philippines and built up his experience on the route between Manila and

Macao Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

until he became a full captain in 1841. By February 1844, Carlos bought a 146-ton topsail schooner, Il Martiri de Tunkin. He set out to find and salvage valuable cargo from the wreck of the Christina. He succeeded, surrendered (after some delay) the treasure to its insurers in Hong Kong, and was well rewarded. He undertook several voyages in the islands south and east of the Philippines, during which he freed several slaves and did some evangelising. He became more interested in missionary work and went back to Europe for support and training. In 1855, he was appointed Priest Apostolic to Borneo by the Pope and left for the east in 1856 with two Italian priests to assist him. The mission was welcomed in Labuan in 1857 and established stations in

Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...

and at

Looc Porin Looc or LOOC may refer to: Looc Looc is the name of places in the Philippines: * Looc, Occidental Mindoro, a municipality * Looc, Romblon, a municipality * Looc, a barangay in Calamba * Looc, a barangay in Mandaue City LOOC LOOC may refer to ...

(near where Kota Kinabalu is now). However, problems with his assistants left him alone from 1860, and the mission made little progress. Cuarteron, already ill, resigned his post in Rome in December 1879, then returned to his sister's home in Cadiz, where he died of pneumonia on 12 March 1880.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuarteron, Carlos 1816 births 1880 deaths 19th-century Spanish Roman Catholic priests Spanish Roman Catholic missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in Malaysia Roman Catholic missionaries in Brunei Deaths from pneumonia in Spain Spanish people of Italian descent