Kurt Carlsen, a captain who stayed with his ship, SS Flying Enterprise

MV Sewol, 16 April 2014 [Wikipedia]

The Holy Week ferry disaster has brought grief to the whole of the Republic of Korea, especially as so many lost were high school students. President Park Geun-hye described the actions of the captain and some crew members of the Sewol as 'akin to murder'. I wouldn't be inclined to so describe Captain Lee Joon-seok and his companions. What really happened will eventually come out in court or through official investigations. I'm certain that none of the crew intended that the ship would sink or that anyone would die as a result. But if the captain was among the first to leave the ship, as reported, that was inexcusable.

Costa Concordia during salvage operation [Wikipedia]

The trial of Captain Francesco Schettini of the Costa Concordia that foundered off the Italian coast with the loss of 32 lives on 13 January 2012 is still ongoing.

SS Flying Enterprise, 10 January 1952 [Wikipedia]

When I was in Grade 2, a time when few had telephones, Ireland had no TV, when the internet wasn't even a dream in someone's imagination, the national radio station broadcast only at certain times of the day and evening and people depended on newspapers as their major source of news, I along with everyone else was utterly enthralled by what was happening to the SS Flying Enterprise, a cargo ship that began to founder in stormy weather off the south coast of England.

On 21 December 1951 the Flying Enterprise left Hamburg, Germany, under Captain Kurt Carlsen, a Dane who lived in New Jersey, USA. It carried ten passengers. In those days many cargo ships were allowed to have up to twelve passengers.

On Christmas Night the ship ran into a storm as it approached England and and by 28 December was listing at an angle of 45 degrees. The crew and passengers were evacuated on the 29th, one passenger drowning but everyone else was rescued. Captain Carlsen remained on board. A number of ships came to accompany the distressed vessel. The tugboat Turmoil arrived on 3 January and its mate, Kenneth Dancy, who died last year at the age of 88, joined Captain Carlsen on the Flying Enterprise the following day.

The Turmoil took the distressed ship in tow on 5 January heading for Falmouth in the south-west of England, but five days later the cable broke at around 01:30 on 10 January. Captain Carlsen and Kenneth Dancy abandoned ship nearly 14 hours later. Within an hour the Flying Enterprise sank.

People, including children, were talking about nothing else. We waited anxiously for each bulletin on the radio, for each issue of our morning and evening newspapers.

Captain Carlsen became an international hero. He refused to let himself become a wealthy 'celebrity' and went back to sea. At a reception for him in Woodbridge, NJ, where he lived he said, My boss sent me out a few month ago with a beautiful ship and I come back without it.  He told the people that the warmth of their welcome had more than compensated for my little inconvenience out in the Atlantic the last three weeks. He died in 1989 at the age of 75.

Here is a contemporary newsreel of the saga of SS Flying Enterprise.

The Apostleship of the Sea, under the patronage of Our Lady Stella Maris, serves seafarers in many ports throughout the world.

Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee
Rembrandt, 1633. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston [Web Gallery of Art]

Korean Columban Lay Missionary and victims of the tsunami in Japan



Fr John Burger is an American Columban who worked for many years in Japan. he is currently a member of the General Council of the Columbans, based in Hong Kong. He posted this report on his Facebook. Soon-Ho Kim, above right, has been a Columban lay missionary in Japan since 1999. You can read about Soon-Ho Kim's previous work in Japan in Strangers in a Strange Land. She has also written about her work with the Apostleship of the Sea.

Soon-Ho Kim, left, on board a ship docked in Japan.

Sendai (Agenzia Fides) – The Holy See hopes to help the fishermen hit by the tsunami to rebuild their livelihoods: the person responsible for realising this intention in Japan is Soon-Ho Kim, a St Columban lay missionary who has worked in Japan for many years and is currently the Director of the Apostolate of the Sea in Japan. Interviewed by Fides, Soon-Ho Kim reports that there are about 260 ports adversely affected by the tsunami and more than 20,000 boats destroyed: this has devastated the lives of thousands of families who now lack the basic means for their livelihood, with serious damage to the local economy in the three prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima. Fides interviewed Soon-Ho Kim.

Can you give us an idea of the damages sustained by the fishermen?

Conditions are very difficult. The roads are destroyed and it is difficult to reach the areas hit by the tsunami. Efforts first need to be made to reach the victims with humanitarian aid. Fishermen are amongst those hit hardest. The number of deaths has not yet been certified, but, according to official data, they have suffered serious damage, losing 111 ports in the Prefecture of Iwate, 142 in that of Miyagi and 10 ports in that of Fukushima. It seems that more than 20,000 fishing boats and vessels have been destroyed, an absolute catastrophe for these people for whom fishing is the main form of subsistence.

What can you do to help them, in keeping with the wishes of the Holy Father?

First of all we are trying to stabilise an efficient network of communication, which is not easy in these conditions. For the first few weeks emergency aid will continue. Then we will try to estimate and understand the extent to which coastal communities have been affected by focusing our attention on fishermen. We will begin reconstruction projects, which may be much larger than the funds at our disposal. We will act in concert with our government agencies to avoid the risk of duplication of aid. (PA) (Agenzia Fides)

Misyononline offline (temporarily)

We uploaded the July-August Misyon on the first of this month. Yesterday afternoon we suddenly went offline. I've been in contact with the people we pay to pay the server. The fault is with the latter but I hope we'll be back as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, you can access most of the material from the current issue here, thanks to Joy Rile, my editorial assistant.

When I was doing mission appeals in the Archdiocese of Westminster and the Diocese of Nottingham in England during the summer of 2005, I think, I saw the young Filipino seaman in the photo above on the posters of the Apostleship of the Sea. They were having their annual fundraising at the same time. His name, as I recall, is Vicente.

In a parish in London I mentioned the poster and seafarers in a homily. After Mass a young member of the Royal Navy, who was from the West Indies, if my memory serves me right, thanked me for speaking about those who work at sea.

First Sunday of Lent; National Migrants' Sunday, Philippines

Above is the cover of Misyon for September-October 2006 featuring Tony McAvoy, lay chaplain of the Apostleship of the Sea in Teesport in the northeast of England, and Vincent, a Filipino seafarer. Vincent was the ‘poster boy’ of the AOS for their annual appeal in the dioceses of England and Wales in July 2005, when I did some appeals for the Columbans in Westminster and Nottingham.

Fr Arsenio Redulla, a Filipino diocesan priest who worked for a while with the Columbans in Ireland, told me a beautiful story of something that happened about twenty years ago. He was doing mission appeals for the Columbans in the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore. Waterford is a port city in the south-east of Ireland. Early on a Sunday morning he was driving from the city to a parish outside when he saw a young Filipino man, the only person on the streets, thumbing a lift. Being the only Filipino priest in Ireland at the time Father Arsenio, of course, stopped.

The young Filipino was a seaman whose ship had just docked and he was hoping that someone would help him find a church where he could attend Mass.

I told that story during my homily in a church in Westminster where I saw the poster with Vincent. After Mass a young member of the Royal Navy, a West Indian, approached me and thanked my.

It is persons such as the young seaman in Waterford that Fr Edwin Corros CS, executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, has in mind in the statement below for National Migrants’ Sunday, observed in the Philippines every year on the first Sunday of Lent.

As the second reading in the Mass for Ash Wednesday reminded us, ‘So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us’ (2 Cor 5:20).

When I go home to Ireland I inevitably hear from friends about the kindness they found in Filipino nurses, either while they were patients or while visiting someone in hospital. One friend, whose wife died after a long stay in hospital, brought me to meet the nurses who had taken such loving care of her. One of the typically Filipino things they had done was to have a little party on what was to be her last birthday, even though she was totally unaware of it.

Politicians here speak of ‘OFWs’ (Overseas Filipino Workers) as our ‘modern-day heroes’. Very few politicians here care about the people so their words are empty. Some people suggest that those who stay at home with less pay are the real heroes.

Some sacrifice family life totally in order to build a better house for their family and send their children to good schools. But is it worth it? Husbands and wives are separated. Children grow up not knowing one or other parent, sometimes not knowing either, as they are left in the care of grandparents or of uncles and aunts.

OFWs are ambassadors for Christ, says CBCP (Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines) official

MANILA, February 27, 2009─Overseas Filipino workers are not only “modern heroes”, as the government would like to cite them for the money they bring, but in the eyes of the Church, they are ambassadors for Christ.

Fr. Edwin Corros, CS, executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI) said OFWs are evangelizers in their own right and as such can be regarded as ambassadors for Christ.

“That is a beautiful word to describe the migrants, that they are actually ambassadors for Christ. Imagine, as ambassadors you are carrying with you the values of Jesus,” said Corros, adding:
“Think about the roles of our ambassadors, our diplomatic officials. They carry with them the culture, the values [of their native land]. That is how you are supposed to present yourself to your host. St. Paul as ambassador for Christ, carried with him such responsibility, such value that wherever he goes as a missionary to the gentiles, he presented not himself but Christ,” he explained.

Cited by Pope John Paul II as modern-day missionaries, Filipinos working overseas practiced the Catholic faith in their adoptive country more fervently than in their own native land.
They find solace in their faith in the midst of deprivation, loneliness and exploitation in the workplace.

The 23rd National Migrants Sunday celebration on March 1 has taken the theme “The sacrifices of the Filipino migrants mirror the journey of St. Paul.”

Corros said the chosen theme is very opportune not simply because the Church celebrates Pauline year but that OFWs can relate very well with the Apostle’s own experience of travails and uncertainties.

“Our migrants are sacrificing [a lot] for the sake of their [families’] future. St. Paul always reminded the communities he founded to think of other Christians, other communities who need help,” Corros said.

Despite poverty and difficulties Filipino migrant workers can still think of reaching out to others in need, said Corros

“The Filipinos are very generous; they are always expressing their philanthropic [acts] either in goods or in cash. I remember when a landslide occurred in Quezon in 2004 [and the] province was inundated by flash flood. I called up our chaplain overseas. In a matter of one month I was able to gather I million plus of donation. This is for me a testament to the generosity of our Filipino migrants,” said Corros. (Pinky Barrientos, FSP)

Please pray for all migrants and refugees.