Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart – The Sea Sunday address by Senior Papal advisor Cardinal Peter Turkson has criticised “mechanization and automation” and lack of shore leave, and demanded more use of renewables or “cleaner burning fuels” for cargo ship propulsion.
Message for Sea Sunday 2018
(8th July 2018)As we celebrate Sea Sunday, we are invited to remember the 1.2 millions of seafarers from all nations, professing different faiths, forced to live for several months in the confined space of a vessel, away from their families and loved ones missing the most important and meaningful events in their families (birthdays’, graduations, etc.) and failing to be present during times of trials and difficulties such as sickness and death.
Seafarers with their profession play a significant role in our global economy by transporting from one corner of the world to another, 90% of all the goods we use in our daily life. For this reason, today while we pray for all of them wherever they are, we would like also to express our gratitude for their tough work full of sacrifices.
Here are some of the challenges that the people of the sea face daily:
Denied shore leave and ship visiting
With the mechanization and automatization, the turnaround time in the ports is reduced to the minimal, leaving the crew with inadequate personal time to rest and relax. Furthermore, if the introduction of the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS) might have improved maritime security at the same time it proved to be particularly challenging for seafarers. In numerous ports, crews are finding increasingly difficult to get permission to go ashore, either because of company policy or because restrictive and discriminatory regulations imposed by governments. However, that is not all. Many of our chaplains and ship visitors are denied entering into ports or prevented to go on board of vessels to provide material and spiritual welfare to seafarers who reach shore after weeks at sea.
We deplore these facts that are contradicting the spirit of the Regulation 4.4 of the Maritime Labor Convention (MLC) [1] entered into force on August 20th, 2013, aimed to improve wellbeing of the seafarers. Crews should not be denied the freedom of coming ashore likewise chaplains and ship visitors should not be denied the right to go on board of vessels.
Violence at sea and piracy
Though the situation is improved compared to the previous years, we would like to invite everyone to be more vigilant regarding violence at sea that generally is characterized by piracy. The root cause of piracy is always related to political instability and it is often linked to the fishing industry. Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has deprived many coastal states of their natural marine resources, which created a situation of extreme poverty on land, making it easy for unscrupulous individuals to transform desperate and unemployed fishers into pirates.
We request governments and ship owners to put into place all the necessary mechanisms to protect the life of the people at sea and to minimize the economic cost.
Abandonment of vessels and crews
Abandonment of vessels and crews is not a new problem for the maritime industry. According to a newspaper report [2] from 2012 to 2017 more than 1,300 seafarers were abandoned for different reasons in foreign ports far away from home, often with unpaid salaries and without food and fuel provisions for the vessel. Once abandoned the seafarers are left themselves to struggle for food, salaries, immigration status and many more issues unless they are assisted by a welfare organization.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all Stella Maris chaplains and volunteers who, from Malta to South Africa, from United Kingdom to United States of America, for months and months have and are still providing material, spiritual, legal and psychological support to several crews of abandoned vessels.
We call for the full implementation of the amendments to the MLC 2006, requiring that a financial security system be put into place in order to ensure that ship owners provide compensation to seafarers and their families in the event of abandonment [3].
Environmental impact on the oceans
In Laudato Si’ Pope Francis says: “There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced, for example, substituting for fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy” (no. 26).
Like all types of transportation that use fossil fuels, vessels produce carbon dioxide emissions that significantly contribute to global climate change and acidification. Besides carbon dioxide ships also release a handful of other pollutants that contribute to the problem.
We support the efforts made by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), to prevent and significantly reduce marine plastic pollution from the shipping sector and in curbing greenhouse gas emissions from ships, as it implements other regulations that will mandate cleaner-burning fuels at sea.
Finally, I invoke the Blessed Mother, Star of the Sea, to extend her maternal protection to the people of the sea and guide them from the dangers of the sea to a secure port.
Cardinal Peter A. Turkson
Prefect
Read more: http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2018/07/08/0527/01152.html#ing
In my opinion the politicisation of the Catholic Church on issues like Global Warming and automation is likely a key reason why access to crew is increasingly being denied.
Imagine you were a ship owner – would you really want someone to come on board and stir up discontent about modern work practices, and tell everyone their ship is helping to destroy the planet?
Cardinal Turkson previously appeared in WUWT, when in 2017 Turkson tried to pressure President Trump to abandon his climate pledges to the American People.
I am a faithful Catholic but I cannot understand or agree with the Pope or Cardinal Turkson on this issue. I wish they would focus their efforts on encouraging moral virtue rather than vain virtue signaling.
Mechanisation and automation bad? Next thing he’ll tell us that the washingmachine comes from the devil who brought it to us in order to encourage idleness and give women time to develop impure thoughts. Back to the washroom with them, and using the shrubbing board!
“Finally, I invoke the Blessed Mother, Star of the Sea, to extend her maternal protection to the people of the sea and guide them from the dangers of the sea to a secure port.”
There is something seriously awry with Turkson. He refers to the Phoenician goddess Astarte which decorated their boat prows with a Venus “sickle” on the head, often mistaken for the Christian Mary. Christian they definitely were not, brillaiant sea-people yes. Still they were so much trouble Ramses hat to smash them, a kind of sea Taliban. We owe our alphabet to them.
If anyone checks what Astarte stood for the raging scandalscould be explained. It is thus no surprise Laudato Si sounds like a Phoenician prayer!
Catholics always are inclined to include heathen elements into their religion. So no wonder they also embrace the new climate religion, invented by atheists.
Boats should skim off the plastic
mortimerzilch
Agreed.
Someone needs to pay for this, however.
Your suggestions are welcome.
Auto.
Boats should skim off the plastic in the ocean so every crossing makes it cleaner. What a lost opportunity. It should be mandatory!
Eternal Father strong to save
Who’s arm doth bind the restless wave
Who bids the mighty ocean deep
Its set appointed limits keep
On land and sea, where e’er you are
God will stop the SLR
Amen
Modern cargo ships should carry large sacks of communion wafers and limes to keep the sailors happy and healthy. The ships should run on renewable hydrogen generated from the sea water they sail in. Zero emissions and perfectly renewable energy. And every ship should have a virgin berth.
For me as a conservative Lutheran, Catholics have always problems to read and understand and believe into the Bible – for some hundred years. (Grin).
Otherwise they would know that the world and the weather is in God’s hand and it will end when He wishes. Day and night, Summer ans Winter, frost and heat will always be there.
Even Non-Believers will see a lot of regulatory mechanisms which regulate the climate within certain parameters.
But the Catholic Church listens to Atheists like Schellnhuber from PIK.
Okay Cardinal, Jesus gave you one job, and only one job, to PREACH CHRIST. He did NOT say to meddle in the affairs of the world. Do your job!
https://www.marineinsight.com/life-at-sea/5-problems-affecting-seafarers-today/
It’s not just Catholic priests having trouble meeting seafarers.
The skimping on maintenance because ports want ships out again
fast is a threat to life and property.
As for piracy, I am a pacifist by inclination, but I think international marine law should require all large ships to be armed and all captains should be authorised to direct deadly force as necessary to protect their crew.
The international marine community banned tributyltin; I suspect that if carbon dioxide really were a pollutant they would try to do something about it. However, it’s generally the poorer nations that have the worst environmental records, and making 90% of the world’s trade more expensive sounds like a good recipe for impoverishing the world and making global pollution *worse*. I fear that the Cardinal’s heart may be better than his head.