Catholics attend morning mass at the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Klang, Selangor, January 5, 2014. — Picture by Saw Siow Feng

KLANG, Jan 5 — With the pall of Muslim unhappiness hanging over the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes today, turnout for the its Bahasa Malaysia session at 12.30pm was reduced to two-thirds its regular size.

Even so, the voices of 200 Catholics flooded the 750-seater church as they sang acapella in worship: “Kudus, kudus, kuduslah Tuhan Allah, segala kuasa syurga dan bumi penuh kemuliaan-Mu”.

[Translation: Holy, holy, holy is our Lord God, all the heavens and earth are full of Your glory].

In the 86-year-old church with its high ceiling and stained glass windows, the parishioners echoed the prayer led by its Catholic priest Rev, Father Michael Chua: “Marilah bersyukur kepada Tuhan, Allah kita” (Let us be thankful to Lord, our God).

The mostly Bumiputera congregation—which also included Indonesians, Vietnamese, Thai, Myanmar and Africans—also murmured “Allah Bapa” (God our Father), “Allah yang maha kuasa” (God Almighty) and “Allah tri tunggal, Bapa, Put’ra dan Roh Kudus” (God the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit).

The hour-long Mass seemed to refresh their spirits.

In the voices of the Sabah and Sarawak Catholics, were none of the anxiety they disclosed feeling, after a week of agitators warning Christians to desist from uttering “Allah” in their prayers, songs and worship.

“Since I was born, we have been using the word ‘Allah’,” Sabahan parishioner Molyza Hunsinar told The Malay Mail Online after Mass.

“There are no problems using the word ‘Allah’ in Sabah. This is our human right. There must be freedom of religion. They must respect our rights,” added the 33-year-old manager from Kudat.

She also questioned why some Muslims claimed that non-Muslims using the word “Allah” would cause Muslims to falter in their faith.

“If your faith is strong, it won’t be shaken,” said the Kadazan woman.

A Sarawakian parishioner who only gave his name as Danz, said that it was strange for the country to have seemingly separate rules on the usage of Allah for East and West Malaysia.

“In Sabah and Sarawak, Christians have been using the word ‘Allah” for so long,” he told The Malay Mail Online.

“Freedom of religion is entrenched in the Sabah and Sarawak Agreements,” said Danz, referring to the conditions set by Sabah and Sarawak upon forming Malaysia in 1963.

Liberty Sylvester, a 34-year-old clerk from Keningau, Sabah, said it was his right to refer to God as “Allah” he worships in the Malay language.

“In Sabah, we have used it for a long time. But here, they make a big deal of it,” said the parishioner of Dusun ethnicity.

Another parishioner Abraham Gadho, who is from Timor Leste, pointed out that it was common for Christians to refer to God as “Allah” in Indonesia.

“Even before we were born, they have been using ‘Allah’,” Gadho, who is a 30-year-old crane operator, told The Malay Mail Online.

Parish priest Rev Father Michael Chua told reporters after Mass that 1,000 people typically attend the English service, while 300 people attend the Bahasa Malaysia Mass on average.

“We have three services - English, Tamil and Bahasa,” said the Catholic priest.

He added that fear of the Muslim groups’ demonstration had kept some people away from the Bahasa Malaysia service.

Outside the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, some 20 Muslims and non-Christians bearing flowers chose to stand in solidarity instead with the minority religious community, while the 900-strong Catholic congregation celebrated Mass at 9am.

Social activist Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, who was present, said that the Arabic word for God belonged to everyone.

Muslim coalition Klang Muslims Solidarity Secretariat changed the venue of their protest from the Catholic church to a nearby stadium earlier in the morning, which saw an attendance of only about 50 people.

The protest by Muslim groups today comes after the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) seized more than 300 copies of Malay and Iban-language bibles from the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) on Thursday in a surprise raid.