BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — On a balmy December night, 4 Indian crew members, desperate to go discover this Mediterranean metropolis the place their container ship docked for a number of hours, turned for assist to Stella Maris. It’s the biggest of the faith-based organizations that minister to seafarers in a whole lot of ports world wide.
“We just call them, they help us with everything,” from connecting with far-away households on video to altering forex to delivering small Christmas presents, mentioned second officer Sunit Kamal.
They usually donate Bibles in several languages too, the 33-year-old added within the group’s small foyer subsequent to a statue of Mary, one in every of whose historical titles is “star of the sea,” or Stella Maris in Latin.
Whether or not it’s providing non secular companies, serving to deal with labor abuses, or one thing as sensible as serving as a supply spot for Amazon packages, religion leaders and volunteers don’t see their work as charity.
Quite, their ministry is a approach of affirming the human rights of the seafarers who maintain international commerce shifting, typically for low wages and in harsh situations removed from most individuals’s view — even in such in style vacationer hotspots as Barcelona.
“It’s all pastoral care because it’s to help a person in what they need as a person,” mentioned Ricard Rodríguez-Martos, the Catholic deacon and former service provider marine captain who leads Stella Maris in Barcelona, the place it’s supported by the bishops’ council. “Seafarers are used to being seen by the people on land as a piece of the ship.”
Seafarers assist transfer international commerce, however their wants typically go unheeded
In response to the United Nations, greater than 80% of the quantity of worldwide commerce in items is transported on the seas, making seafarers essential to shopper merchandise from veggies to automobiles.
Based greater than 100 years in the past in Scotland by a bunch of Catholic volunteers, Stella Maris is now current in additional than 50 nations and 350 ports, from Barcelona to Buenos Aires, from Manila to Miami, mentioned Tim Hill, nationwide director of Stella Maris UK, the largest nationwide entity within the community.
“Our mission is to provide practical, pastoral and spiritual support to seafarers, fishers and their families of any creed,” Hill mentioned. “We get presented loads of problems.”
The seafarers’ high concern is isolation — particularly as stays in port are getting shorter and ships are more and more ethnically various, leaving principally male crews from locations as totally different because the Philippines and Ukraine with little that’s acquainted on prolonged sea voyages.
Volunteers visiting docked ships are most frequently requested for SIM playing cards to contact households, however additionally they get far graver requests — from hospital visits for injured seafarers to assist with bullying, harassment, lack of shore depart, and even circumstances the place a vessel is deserted and its crew left with out meals, pay, or the means to go house, Hill mentioned.
A worldwide community of seafarer ministries
Crews typically really feel safer talking confidentially with a chaplain, who then can alert legislation enforcement and assist with authorized help throughout totally different nations.
Simply final summer season, a chaplain in Houston, Texas, alerted Rodríguez-Martos {that a} ship “with many problems” was headed to Barcelona. The deacon reported it to port authorities, who boarded the vessel in Spain and required the shipowner to repair the problems, Rodríguez-Martos mentioned.
He additionally works intently together with his counterparts in Marseille, France, which is commonly the earlier port of name alongside the Mediterranean. Identical to Barcelona, which hosted the America’s Cup regattas this fall, Marseille starred this 12 months because the venue for Olympic crusing.
Nevertheless it’s a really totally different world on the business and cruise ship docks and alongside the handfuls of kilometers (miles) that Stella Maris minivans journey each day to get to ships for visits and to convey seafarers again to their workplaces.
In each cities, the facilities embrace a “club” with a bit bar, some souvenirs on the market, primary leisure like small basketball courts or tables for pool, foosball, and desk tennis. Literature contains non secular magazines and maps to the cities’ sights — particularly in style since seafarers “need to see something else” after months at sea, mentioned Gérard Pelen, one of many founders of the ministry in Marseille.
Many ask to be taken to Notre Dame de la Garde, the Catholic basilica whose inside is adorned in maritime-themed votive choices, mentioned Marc Feuillebois, the director of the welcome middle in Marseille’s cruise ship terminal. It hosts about 10,000 seafarers a 12 months.
“It’s the first and the last thing they see,” Feuillebois mentioned of the hilltop church that overlooks the bay of Marseille.
Religion at sea, from Plenty to boarding Nativity scenes for Christmas
Some observant seafarers additionally ask to be taken to worship companies or to have a religion chief maintain one onboard, although curiosity has declined over time.
“We only get into the subject if we see they’re interested,” Rodríguez-Martos mentioned. He’s planning Christmas Eve Mass despite the fact that final 12 months not one seafarer confirmed up for it within the little Stella Maris chapel, the place a determine of Christ is mounted to an previous anchor as if it have been a cross. On Christmas day, ships are sometimes out at sea as a substitute of at ports, the place they must pay duties additionally on non-working days.
However no matter their very own observe, seafarers stay very keen to satisfy with the volunteers and religion leaders for some much-needed, non-judgmental human contact.
His spouse of practically 50 years, Marie-Agnes Rigaud, famous the significance of ministering to the seafarers’ households too. She remembers reaching out to the household of a seafarer from the Philippines for whom she had prayed a rosary on the morgue, and she or he’s continuously hosted some for Christmas meals of their home in a village outdoors Marseille.
“They’re people who are for the most part very lonely,” mentioned Bryan Parrish, an American Protestant pastor who plans to volunteer on the Marseille mission after beginning a “seaman’s club” in La Rochelle, on France’s Atlantic coast, greater than 30 years in the past.
Tackling that loneliness is on the coronary heart of the mission to seafarers, even in small gestures. On Christmas Eve, as an example, Stella Maris delivered hand-sized Nativity scenes and nougat sweet to seven ships docked in Barcelona.
“It’s a way of saying, ’It’s Christmas, we’re thinking of you,” Rodríguez-Martos mentioned.