Dato' Seri Sebastian Francis was born on 11 November 1951 and is a Malaysian prelate of the Catholic Church.
15 Facts About Sebastian Francis
1.
2.
Pope Francis elevated him to the rank of cardinal on 30 September 2023.
3.
Sebastian Francis is the second cardinal from Malaysia after Anthony Soter Fernandez.
4.
Sebastian Francis was born on 11 November 1951, in Johor Bahru, which was then part of the Federation of Malaya.
5.
Sebastian Francis's grandparents had emigrated to Malaya in the 1900s from Ollur in present day Thrissur district, Kerala, India.
6.
Sebastian Francis entered Saint Sebastian Francis Xavier Minor Seminary in Singapore in 1967 and enrolled in the College General, a major seminary in Penang, three years later, where he studied theology.
7.
Sebastian Francis was parish vicar of St Francis Xavier in Malacca from 1977 to 1981 and then briefly parish vicar of Immaculate Conception in Johor Bahru.
8.
Sebastian Francis then moved to Rome and earned a licentiate in dogmatic theology from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in 1983.
9.
Sebastian Francis was vicar general of Malacca-Johor from 2003 to 2012.
10.
Sebastian Francis interrupted his pastoral work to study at the Maryknoll School of Theology in New York where he obtained a degree in justice and peace studies in 1991.
11.
Sebastian Francis received his episcopal consecration on 20 August 2012 at St Anne's Church in Bukit Mertajam from Archbishop Murphy Nicholas Xavier Pakiam, with Bishops Antony Selvanayagam and Paul Tan Chee Ing serving as co-consecrators.
12.
Sebastian Francis's consecration was witnessed by 10,000 Catholics and attended by then Chief Minister of Penang, Lim Guan Eng.
13.
At that consistory, Pope Sebastian Francis made him a cardinal priest, assigning him the title of Santa Maria Causa Nostrae Laetitiae.
14.
Sebastian Francis is the chairman of the Office of Social Communication of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences since 2023.
15.
Sebastian Francis was formerly the president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei from 2016 to 2023.