In a letter to the organization's chaplains and volunteers released by the Holy See press office Monday, international director Fr. Bruno Ciceri said the change was necessary because the charity had different names in different countries, causing "confusion and misunderstanding."

"From now on ‘Stella Maris' will be the official name with which the Apostolate of the Catholic Church for the people of the sea will be known. This will replace the current name, ‘Apostleship of the Sea,'" he wrote, also unveiling a new logo for the charity which is present in 55 countries and supports more than a million seafarers a year. Read more

Either due to a peasant dialect or a transcription error, Stilla became Stella.

So Mary went from a drop in the ocean to the star of the sea. This speaks highly to God's power in exalting the humble!

Read 5 facts about Mary's title Stella Maris

That was the comment of a UK port chaplain after he responded to an unusual, but not surprising, request from a visiting ship's captain. The captain had told the priest: "What my crew would really like is to walk on green grass. All they get to walk on is steel." So the priest took them to a churchyard, where they all walked barefoot for an hour.

This story of practical mercy is one example of the myriad of ways the Apostleship of the Sea helps seafarers worldwide, including at centres here in New Zealand.

Shipping is a huge industry around the world.

According to a Sea Sunday presentation by the Apostleship of the Sea (UK), there are an estimated 100,000 ships at sea worldwide, with some 1.5 million seafarers.

If the containers of one company, Maersk, were lined up, they would stretch some 18,000 km, more than half way around the Earth.

A highly competitive industry leads to a lot of pressure to minimise costs and has safety and pressure of work consequences for seafarers.

The Maritime Labour Convention 2006 is one vehicle for protecting the rights of seafarers, but vigilance to ensure ongoing compliance is essential.

The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) has recently commissioned an in-depth study into the implementation and enforcement of the convention, after reports of numerous breaches.

The modern seafarer has to be a hardy, resilient type in order to survive. Private space is very limited on most ships. Seafarers work in an industrial environment, pervaded by the vibration of massive engines. There is no opportunity to escape your environment.

Pressure is on to load and unload vessels as quickly as possible to reduce port charges, so opportunities for shore leave can be limited. Shore leave is typically measured in hours rather than in days. Surveys by seafarer welfare organisations have borne out what I have observed from the seafarers I have encountered as a port chaplain - that a major desire is communication with family back home. Continue reading

Source & Image:

• Article by Michael Otto, AoS Chaplain in Auckland, in Marist Messenger

This world of the sea, with the continuous migration of people today, must take into account the complex effects of globalization and, unfortunately, must come to grips with situations of injustice, especially when the freedom of a ship's crew to go ashore is restricted, when they are abandoned altogether along with the vessels on which they work, when they risk piracy at sea and the damage of illegal fishing.

'The vulnerability of seafarers, fishermen and sailors calls for an even more attentive solicitude on the Church's part and should stimulate the motherly care that, through you, she expresses to all those whom you meet in ports and on ships or whom you help on board during those long months at sea'.

These words were addressed by Pope Benedict XVI to the participants of the XXIII AoS Congress held in the Vatican City, November 19-23, 2012.

As a matter of fact, for more than 90 years the Catholic Church, through the Work of the Apostleship of the Sea with its network of chaplains and volunteers in more than 260 ports of the world, has shown her motherly care by providing spiritual and material welfare to seafarers, fishers and their families.

As we celebrate Sea Sunday, we would like to invite every member of our Christian communities to become aware and recognize the work of an estimated 1.2 to 1.5 million seafarers who at any time are sailing in a globalized worldwide fleet of 100,000 ships carrying 90 per cent of the manufactured goods.

Very often, we do not realize that the majority of the objects we use in our daily life are transported by ships criss-crossing the oceans. Multinational crews experience complex living and working conditions on board, months away from their loved ones, abandonment in foreign ports without salaries, criminalization and natural (storms, typhoons, etc.) and human (pirates, shipwreck, etc.) calamities. Continue reading

Sources

• Vatican Information Services
• Image: Sunshine and Sails
• Apostleship of the Sea NZ (Inc)