Sea Sunday message highlights injustice faced by seafarers

In a message for Sea Sunday, Cardinal Michael Czerny acknowledged that while seafarers witness the “boundless beauty” of the seas, they also endure its “physical, spiritual, and social darkness.”

The Catholic Church observes Sea Sunday on the second Sunday of July each year, praying and advocating for seafarers and all who work at sea.

Ahead of this year’s observance, Cardinal Czerny, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, released a reflection on the often-overlooked labour of seafarers.

He began by highlighting the millions of workers in the maritime industry — from ship crews to dockworkers, coast guard personnel, and customs officers — whose “hidden efforts,” he wrote, bring many of our daily necessities to shore.

“Today as well as in the past,” he wrote, “seafaring can entail absence from home and land, for months and even years. Both the seafarers and their families may miss significant moments in the other’s life.”

In addition to long separations, many seafarers are “threatened by injustices, exploitation, and inequality,” the Cardinal said.

He also praised the Church’s seafarers’ ministry, which provides pastoral care and advocates for the rights of maritime workers. Known internationally as Stella Maris — Latin for “Star of the Sea,” an ancient title for the Blessed Virgin Mary — the ministry operates in hundreds of ports around the world.

This “ministry of the sea,” Czerny wrote, helps “bring the peripheral into the centre” by encountering maritime workers in person and in prayer, improving their material and spiritual conditions, defending their dignity and rights, and promoting stronger international cooperation.

In the second half of his message, Cardinal Czerny reflected on two episodes in Church history connected to the sea.

First, he recalled the Apostle Paul’s journey to Corinth — a major port city — where Paul found a large following but soon faced divisions within the new Christian community. Czerny said Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians offers encouragement today to “work for increased unity, not only among people who are different from each other, but also among people who are experiencing division and mutual tensions.”

He also noted how the sea has long served as a channel for evangelization. “The Church today,” he wrote, “can draw inspiration from the inhabitants of shoreside communities who were the first to hear the utterly new message of Christ from seafaring apostles and other missionaries.”

“We cannot,” Czerny concluded, “be open to life’s possibilities if we prefer the comforts of the familiar.”

In the Archdiocese of Vancouver, parishes are invited to include seafarers, as well as port chaplains and volunteers who support them, in the prayers of the faithful.

In the Diocese of Victoria, the Stella Maris Ministry is led by Deacon Philip Yuson, who serves as Port Chaplain, offering prayer, encouragement, and support to seafarers far from home.

The diocese will mark Sea Sunday with a special Mass for Seafarers on July 11 at 8:45 p.m. at the Edelweiss Club in Victoria.

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