APOSTOLATE FOR PARTICIPANTS IN MARITIME COMPETITIONS

VATICAN CITY, NOV 22, 2002 (VIS) - Today the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples published a communique which recalls that the 21st World Congress of the Apostleship of the Sea, promoted by the council, was celebrated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from September 29 to October 5.

The congress examined the problems that globalization presents to seafarers and their families. to merchant navies, the fishing sector - small scale and industrial - and the leisure cruise industry.

The communique affirms that there is another category of professional seafarers that this dicastery cares for: the participants in maritime competitions such as the Vuitton Cup and America's Cup, their families, the support teams and journalists that follow them. "Today, this sector too must be reached by the Apostleship of the Sea," says the note.
For this reason, the communique continues, Archbishop Stephen Fumio Hamao, president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, entrusted the task of completing a study in this regard to the person in charge of the council's maritime section. The first phase of research (November-December 2002) will consist of contacting the people that can help in understanding this environment, such as parish priests and chaplains and the journalists who cover these events. The second phase will establish a dialogue at the end of the Vuitton Cup (January 2003) with the local Church, the media and support groups in order to make known the Apostleship of the Sea and its ministry among seafarers and itinerant people.

The communique concludes by affirming that the information and suggestions that are gathered in these two phases of the study will help "diocesan bishops in particular to 'determine the most suitable forms of pastoral care for maritime personnel'."

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