For years, maritime crews streaming into the Stella Maris Crew Heart and Chapel had been greeted by an indication depicting the Virgin Mary, proclaiming “Mass — Quiet Time — Calm down/Free: Wi-Fi, Espresso and Cookies.”
Now the signal beckoning a protected harbor for 1000’s of world sailors and hospitality employees sits behind locked doorways on the Port of Los Angeles World Cruise Heart in San Pedro.
Its overstuffed couches sit empty. Its care packages of shipboard requirements, from heat socks to shampoo to rosary beads, sit untended. Its espresso machine, chilly, regardless of two Holland America and Princess ships tethered just lately to a dock exterior its capacious home windows.
And its Stella Maris Chapel — a sanctuary for international seafarers who as soon as eagerly obtained the holy Eucharist after days, weeks, or months at sea — sits empty.
“Usually, we’d have 40 to 50 individuals in our chapel from each these cruise ships,” mentioned Father Maurice Harrigan, pastor of the close by Mary Star of the Sea Church and its maritime offshoot at Berth 93.
“And now — zero. They’re not allowed off their ships. That’s an enormous downside, for them and for us. They need to be served; we need to serve them. However we are able to’t do something.”
The view from the Stella Maris Chapel within the Port of Los Angeles. (Victor Alemán)
The doldrums of the San Pedro chapel happen as cruise traces, stalled in the course of the COVID-19 contagion, restarted their engines this fall for world excursions.
It additionally coincides with a worldwide supply-chain backup that has clogged the nation’s busiest container port, with as much as 100 service provider ships idling offshore ready to unload their cargoes.
With so many ships swirling across the Los Angeles and Lengthy Seashore ports, it’s not solely clear why 1000’s of their Catholic seafarers haven’t been in a position to entry the Stella Maris chapel and crew middle.
For Stella Maris, the Latin title for Our Girl, Star of the Sea, has since historic occasions been their guiding star, and the beacon for the historic Mary Star of the Sea parish, its 80-year-old maritime ministry, and for its parish priest.
“I had a direct encounter with Our Girl, inviting me to be a priest for her Son,” mentioned Father Harrigan, whose first Mass 25 years in the past coincided with the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
‘Fisherman’s Parish’
The Mary Star of the Sea Church, based in 1889 on a hill overlooking the Port of Los Angeles, has been dubbed the “Fisherman’s Parish” for its hyperlinks to the once-thriving fishing and canning industries.
A shining Mom Mary has stood for many years atop its lofty bell tower, because of its largely Croatian and Italian fishermen who devoted a portion of their each day catch to pay for the 10-foot bronze statue.
Her open-armed welcome has prolonged to 1000’s of sailors and ship crews streaming by way of the Los Angeles harbor previous Angel’s Gate.
Father James McLaughlin, a Mary Star of the Sea pastor in the course of the Nice Despair and World Warfare II, based the Stella Maris Chapel, a parish outgrowth linked to the Apostleship of the Sea, a Catholic group that helps needy seafarers around the globe.
The dockside chapel and crew lounge function a wheelhouse for maritime ministries within the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
For many years, a Mary Star of the Sea priest performed each day Mass and provided pastoral steering, together with Communion. Additionally they shuttled the principally international ship crews on shore depart to physician appointments and to visits with their respective consulates.
When not attending church in a small alcove towards the again, dozens of women and men frolicked within the lounge, logged on to its computer systems, thumbed by way of its library, picked up Amazon deliveries, or obtained care packages of hygiene kits, prayer books, and extra, assembled by native volunteers from the Catholic Daughters of America.
Up till the COVID-19 contagion, the Stella Maris Crew Heart and Chapel noticed as many as 4,000 mariners a 12 months, a majority from visiting cruise ships, lots of whom had been natives of the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and Southern India, Father Harrigan mentioned.
Father Harrigan within the Port of Los Angeles’ Stella Maris Chapel (Victor Alemán)
The chapel was closed in March 2020 throughout a public well being order barring indoor worship in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its former chaplain, Father Freddie Chua, now serves as pastor of Annunciation Church in Arcadia.
Now with the COVID-19 restrictions eased and elevated cruise and cargo ship visitors, Church officers say that worshippers aren’t in a position to return. In truth, they’ve merely disappeared.
“It’s been in limbo,” mentioned Nicholas Vilicich, sacristan for Mary Star of the Sea, who as soon as helped shuttle crews in a delegated church van for Stella Maris. “Crews can’t get off the ship — in any respect. We will’t get on the ships. It’s an excellent loss to crew members who want our assist.”
Blended messages about crew shore leaves
For many years, foreign-born crews on ships docking at U.S. harbors may merely request a shore-leave visa, and go. Then got here the pandemic, when security protocols stranded greater than 200,000 seafarers at sea for months. Now some crews are being granted shore leaves at numerous ports, including Los Angeles.
However Father Harrigan, who has changed Father Chua as chaplain of the Stella Maris Chapel, was mystified as to why cruise ship crews weren’t exhibiting up at Stella Maris. The chapel is being opened as soon as per week until they return.
He mentioned a Princess Cruises purser advised him federal customs officers had been barring shore leaves due to considerations that crews from sure nations may bounce ship. U.S. Customs officers say that’s not the case.
“We haven’t made any port-wide modifications relating to shore passes,” mentioned Jaime Ruiz, department chief for strategic media engagement for the U.S. Customs and Border Safety (CBP), in an e-mail to Angelus. “Final time I checked, there have been over 600 shore passes. I assume the amount will improve because the port congestion eases up and cruise traces resume full operations.”
He mentioned CBP officers conduct an interview and risk-assessment for crew members in possession of a legitimate visa and passport to find out if a shore cross must be granted. It additionally grants leaves for crew members who will not be eligible for a shore cross in particular circumstances, resembling a necessity for medical care.
He mentioned he suspects the lower in Stella Maris attendees could also be largely attributable to the pause in cruise ship operations over the past 12 months, given {that a} cruise ship can have upwards of 1,600 crew versus a container ship that usually has about 20 crew members. “Cruise ship arrivals have resumed over the past couple of months,” Ruiz mentioned, “however we’re nonetheless not at pre-COVID quantity.
“Now we have obtained requests from carriers, cruise ships, and vessel captains to disclaim shore passes,” he mentioned. “Nevertheless, we nonetheless difficulty the shore cross based mostly on the aforementioned threat evaluation and never based mostly on a request from the trade.”
The disappearance of worshippers on the Stella Maris Chapel in the course of the pandemic was largely as a result of pause in cruise ship operations. (Victor Alemán)
Holland America, a department of Carnival Company & plc, based mostly in Seattle, didn’t return calls. A spokeswoman for Princess Cruises, additionally a department of Carnival, mentioned from time to time because of operations, compliance, or security concerns, shore depart will not be out there.
A spokesman for Carnival Company mentioned in an e-mail he did some preliminary checking, and “it seems that our crew members are taking shore depart” in Los Angeles.
However in keeping with the Sea Me Crew Basis, a nonprofit advocate and assist group for international crew members based mostly in Vancouver, it’s been very erratic on who will get to depart a ship and who doesn’t, relying on the ship and port-of-call, in addition to variety of COVID-19 circumstances on board.
“To my data, [Princess is] not letting crews off in LA,” mentioned Krista Thomas, founding president of the inspiration, which has 60,000 Fb crew members. “I haven’t heard of anybody getting off in LA these days.”
In the meantime, Father Harrigan mentioned he’s working with Princess Cruises officers in order that he can conduct companies for seafarers on deck with their ships in port.
“These individuals have a really troublesome life, being seafarers,” mentioned Father Harrigan, 58, a local of Glendale who left the enterprise world after feeling the decision to the priesthood. “And it’s been particularly troublesome for us to serve them. Aboard ship, they don’t have Wi-Fi, comfy couches, wide-screen TVs, stuff all of us take as a right.
“I’m very unhappy, distressed. I want we may serve our individuals,” he mentioned. “These we serve can’t are available in to worship — obtain Mass, any of the sacraments. … They’re spiritually ravenous to loss of life.”
