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Prayer Requests:
Please keep the following AOS-USA Members in your prayer:
For the grandchild of Deacon Bob Balderas, former AOS National Director. Deacon Balderas grandson Enrique was born premature.
For Fr. David Remy, Cruise Ship Priest Member who will be under-going surgery for Prostate Cancer. He asks for the prayers of his AOS Family.
For Fr. Dominic Hahn, Cruise Ship Priest Member, and Cruise Assignment Agent for Holland America Line who is struggling with cancer.
Fr. Tim Brian - Cruise Ship Priest member, who is facing heart problems.
Fr. Donald Koch - Cruise Ship Priest member facing illness.
For a close supporter of AOS-USA as he goes through recovery for alcoholism. May he welcome the Holy Spirit to guide him.
For Fr. Maurice Pierce, Cruise Ship Priest member, who is struggling with health issues of late. He appreciates the prayers of his AOS Family.
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Join AOS USA Today!
To join AOS USA simply click on the following link:
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Check out our newly designed website!
www.aos-usa.org |
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Mark Your Calendars for the next AOS-USA Annual Conference!
April 23 - 26, 2013
Jacksonville, FL
Dear Friends,
Deacon Gjet Bajraktari has invited us to hold the 2013 Conference of the AOS-USA in Jacksonville, Florida.
We have happily accepted, and would like to ask you to mark your calendars now for this event.
April 23 - 26, 2013 is the date. We hope you will plan now to attend.
More information will be coming in regards to the hotel and meeting space.
Doreen M. Badeaux
Secretary General
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AOS World Congress - Final Program
Click here for final agenda:
Dear Delegate:
Please find attached the final version of the Program of the forthcoming World Congress of the Apostleship of the Sea.
The great number of 400 participants from 71 countries is a true expression of the global reality of AOS around the world.
We look forward to your coming and we hope that the suggestions and proposals which will arise during the days of the Congress, will be translated into future action plans for the evangelization of the maritime world.
Yours sincerely
Antonio Maria Card. Vegliņ
President
XJoseph Kalathiparambil
Secretary
P.S. You will soon receive additional information on the Congress.
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Cardinal Veglio's Intervention at Synod of Bishops: "We Must Attend to the Pastoral care of Welcoming Mobile Peoples"
Courtesy: Zenit News
VATICAN CITY, OCT. 16, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Here is the translation of the intervention of Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People. The address was given at the Synod of Bishops on the New Evanglization.
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The topic of human mobility offers significant possibilities for new evangelization, since it presents men and women, young and old, marked by meaningful life experiences, projects, insecurities and sufferings, which shed light on the most pressing questions of their existence, and they feel the need to give meaning to their daily life. Faced with profound questions, the faith is shown to be an answer that interprets, illuminates and fills them with meaning, and Christ appears as the ultimate key to an understanding of human life.
The Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People wishes to underline the importance of the migratory phenomenon and, with it, the entire issue of human mobility. This offers the Church new opportunities for evangelization. With reference to those who do not know Christ and who establish themselves in countries of Christian tradition, there is the challenge of offering them the Kerigma. On the other hand, those who have been evangelized in their country of origin need pastoral accompaniment that helps them remain firm in the faith, while they may in turn become evangelizers.
The migratory phenomenon also places in discussion the welcoming communities, obliging them not only to review the proposals of evangelization, but also putting the very faith of its members to the test, in particular at the moment of proclaiming it to others.
With regard to the indissoluble relationship between the love for God and love for one's neighbor, the presence of mobile persons has also required a supportive response from the Church, at the same time an evangelizer, since charity "proclaims and bears witness to faith" (Benedict XVI, Caritas in veritate, 15). The sphere of suffering and solidarity presents itself as a space for dialogue with the world and an area for testimony of the faith, where charity is the fundamental tool for the new evangelization.
The principal challenge is to know how to link these two inseparable aspects, explicit evangelization and human promotion, avoiding the reduction of our action to just one of these, or satisfying ourselves with a simple silent testimony or implicit evangelization.
In effect, among pastoral workers in this sector there is growing awareness that both social attention and explicit evangelization form part of the mission entrusted to them.
In the context of human mobility, pilgrimage is also a field favorable to the new evangelization.
During recent decades, we have become aware of this possibility, passing from a devotional practice to a pastoral of pilgrimage, discovering that this moment becomes an opportunity for the renewal of the faith and also for a first evangelization. In this sense, I would underline five ideas that may be considered more deeply: first of all, it is necessary to make use of the appeal that characterizes pilgrimage to sanctuaries; then we must attend to the pastoral care of welcoming mobile peoples; to ensure synchronicity on the questions that emerge from the heart of the pilgrim; to take into consideration that our proposal must be faithful to the Christian characteristic of pilgrimage, without reductionism; and finally, to help the pilgrim to discover that his or her path has a precise destination.
For all of this, the current phenomenon of human mobility certainly appears to be a providential opportunity to proclaim the Gospel to the contemporary world. |
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Prayer Request for Grandchild of Past AOS National Director
(Editor's Note: AOS-USA extends it's prayers to Deacon Bob, Dee and baby Enrique. We ask each of you to join us in prayer for little Enrique.)
Dee and I went to New Orleans this past Sunday to see our great grand child for the first time. He was born on Sept. 14, 10 weeks early, and is almost a month old.
Before looking in on our great grand child for the first time, nurses felt it necessary to prepare us for what we were about to see. A swollen baby with tubes and needles in him almost everywhere. He received over six blood transfusions, morphine before moving him to dull the pain of being handled. Xrays were being taken like twice a day. Tests upon tests, etc.
He is so small a page from a "post it" note pad would serve as a diaper. He has a nurse assigned to him 24/7 because of his condition. He is a fighter but not out of the woods yet. The nurses on their breaks and lunch hour making visits to the chapel to pray for Enrique. Beautiful.
To the deacons who visited him and others who have called or emailed me; to the staff of the Pontifical Council for People on the Move; to the Sisters of Mercy and everyone offering prayers for Enrique, his parents, Dee and I say thank you but please keep that prayer line going. Enrique's situation is still very precarious.
God is good,
Deacon Bob and Dee Balderas |
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Shipyard Worker Killed in Crane Accident
Courtesy: Workboat.com
17 October 2012
ERIE, Penn. - Craig Plyler, a 48-year-old employee of Donjon Shipbuilding & Repair here, was killed yesterday morning when he became tangled in machinery while servicing a crane 100 feet in the air. According to Erie County coroner Lyell Cook, he was killed almost instantly as a result of"trauma injuries."
The accident occurred at roughly 8:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, and it took some two hours to recover Plyler, as only the local Erie Fire Department had a crane that could reach high enough to get to the scene of the accident.
Donjon Shipbuilding is owned by Donjon Marine, based in Hillside, N.J. The company employs roughly 200 workers. The photo accompanying this article was taken by editor David Krapf when he visited the Donjon facility in July 2011.
According to reports, an OSHA official will be investigating the accident, along with the coroner.
"There's still a lot of information that needs to be gathered," Cook told WICU, "But it was clearly an accidental death."
GoErie.com has a video report with additional details:
http://video.goerie.com/?pl_id=24682&va_id=3801849
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AOS Charleston serves the Philippine Navy
Hi All,
I pray all is well with you. The attached photograph is from when I offered Mass on the Philippine Navy Ship : Ramon Alcaraz, (Saturday, 9/29/2012), here in North Charleston, at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center ( Flexi, Fletec ). I offered Mass on the ship, after finishing the 5:00pm Mass, at Saint John Catholic Church in North Charleston. I was assisted by our newest volunteer Corey Murray, who speaks Tagalog.
The United States Coast Guard has given the ship to the Navy of the Philippines. It is being refitted here.
There are 96 Sailors on board. Approximately 86 attended the Mass. Rev. Fr. Robert F. Higgins Port Chaplain Charleston, & Diocesan Representative to the Apostleship of the Sea |
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Somalia Piracy- Documentary film:
"Man without a Nation"
Courtesy: Sailor's Helpline
(Editor's Note: AOS-USA commends the AOS-India and AOS-Thailand for their good work in this area. Please view the video and share it with others through your own email, facebook page, etc.)
Can you please share the youtube link among your friends too (facebook etc).
Rgds
Manoj Joy
National Co-ordinator |
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FAO Committee on Fisheries
(Editor's Note: The AOS-USA Fishing Representative to the Administrative Board, Capt. Pietro Parravano, encourages our members and readers to take note of this article.)
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food contributed his views this
month to the ongoing work of the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) to draw
up 'International Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries'.
He will present an official report on fisheries and the right to food to the
UN General Assembly in New York on October 30, in which he will discuss the
right to food implications of over-fishing, the role of small-scale and
industrial fisheries, aquaculture and other aspects.
Read the Special Rapporteur's comments on the COFI guidelines:
International Guidelines on Sustaining Small Fisheries
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Somali Pirates Free Greek-Owned Ship
Say Ransom was 5.7 Million
Courtesy: Reuters
Oct 12 (Reuters) - Somali pirates have released the Greek-owned bulk carrier Free Goddess and its 21 Filipino crew members after holding the vessel for more than eight months, the secretary general of the Seafarers Union of Kenya said on Friday.
Andrew Mwangura, whose role involves contact with ships sailing the Indian Ocean and catering for crews' welfare, said a ransom was dropped onto the vessel from the air on Oct. 10.
"The Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier Free Goddess is now free and she is heading to Salalah, Oman, for ... fuel, fresh water and a crew change," Mwangura told Reuters.
Pirates said the ship had been held at Garad, a haven in Puntland that they use.
"We took $5.7 million ransom after holding the ship for months," a pirate in Garad called Mohamed told Reuters.
The amount of the ransom could not immediately be verified independently.
Mwangura i s a former head of The East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, a n independent organization for the welfare of seafarers and a piracy monitoring group.
International navies have cracked down on pirates, including strikes on their coastal bases, and ship firms are increasingly using armed guards and defensive measures on vessels including barbed wire, scaring off Somali seaborne gangs.
That reduced the number of incidents involving Somali pirates to 69 in the first half of 2012, compared with 163 in the same period last year, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
However, the commander of the European Union's anti-piracy task force has warned that pirates would "try their luck" again following a lull in attacks on the high seas off Somalia now that the monsoon period has ended.
(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Mohamed Ahmed in Mogadishu and Abdqani Hassan in Puntland and Richard Lough in Nairobi; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by James Macharia)
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ITF wins backpay for Nine Seafarers
Courtesy: AIL/NILICO Labor Letter
Nine seafarers from Eastern Europe last month received $102,735 in back wages due since May with the support of the Irish union, Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU).
In response to a call from the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), SIPTU officials boarded the Dutch-Antilles registered vessel, the MV Julia, while it was docked in the port of Drogheda where it was taking on board a 5,000 ton consignment of cement for Belgium.
The union found that the men had not been paid for four months and were dependent on a daily food allowance controlled by the Captain. The union threatened the company, Transship Management, with arrest and seizure of the vessel if the men were not paid. After the company failed to make payment, the crew struck with the support of SIPTU until management relented.
"This was a great example of the worker solidarity we have been building gradually in the port," said ITF coordinator for Ireland and Britain Ken Fleming.
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Prayers for Missing
Coast Guard suspends search for container ship crewman believed to have gone overboard
The Coast Guard announced Tuesday night that they have suspended the search for a 37-year-old Filipino crewman missing since Monday after it was believed that he went overboard from a container ship off the coast of Mobile. The Singapore-based MSC Tokyo reported a missing crewman Monday around 2:30 a.m. when a ladder the man was responsible for retrieving was found on the deck next to a shoe.
http://blog.al.com/live/2012/10/coast_guard_suspends_search_fo_2.html
Coast Guard Looking for Another Ship Worker in the Gulf
Coast Guard members, including teams from Mobile are helping search for a missing 26-year-old Turkish shipworker approximately 230 miles south of New Orleans in the waters of Gulf of Mexico Wednesday morning. The second mate was last seen walking the deck of the Aqua, a Maltese-flagged tanker vessel. He was last seen wearing a green and brown shirt with no life jacket.
http://www.local15tv.com/news/local/story/Coast-Guard-Looking-for-Another-Ship-Worker-in/E7HNIGygU0OsK8tadAQ88g.cspx
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Priest available for Subsitute Work
Need a Priest to substitute for you in the Seafarer Ministry and/or in Parish Ministry?
I am certified by my Local Bishop in Peoria, Il., and trained in The Houston Maritime Ministry Program.
I will be available as of Ash Wednesday Feb 13, 2013 thru Wednesday March 20, 2013 .
Contact Fr. Richard L. Barclift
309.737.5353
110 19th st. # 205
Rock Island, Il. 61201
Thank You. Rev. Richard L. Barclift
Catholic Diocese of Peoria in Illinois
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Important Upcoming Events for
AOS USA Members
AOS-USA Annual Conference
April 23 - 26, 2013
Jacksonville, FL
More information coming....
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