(Vatican Radio) The Vatican’s office responsible for outreach to the world’s maritime community is calling on nations to ratify an international labor convention that would guarantee greater protections to workers in one of the industry’s most dangerous occupations: fishing.
Listen to Tracey McClure’s report:
In a statement issued for World Fisheries Day 21 November 2014, the Pontifical Council for Migrants cites t he Apostleship of the Sea International, the Church’s mission to seafarers, which says more than 58 million people worldwide work in the fishing sector. “Fishing is recognized as one of the most dangerous professions in the world with hundreds of lives lost at sea every year and many more affected by occupational hazards,” the Council observes. “Fishers can be easily exploited, abused and become victims of trafficking and forced labor.”
The statement by the Council’s President Cardinal Antonio Maria Vegliò says the convention would be “a useful tool, if not to totally eradicate these circumstances at least to improve them by bringing additional protection and benefits” and to enhance working conditions.
The 2007 Work in Fishing Convention must be ratified by 10 countries, including 8 coastal states before it can enter into force. As of April 17th 2014, the Convention has been ratified by: Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Congo, Morocco, and South Africa.
The Council warns that overexploitation of the world’s fishing stocks has reached a critical point. In the short term, coastal communities that rely on fishing risk losing their source of livelihood. It is necessary therefore, to practice responsible fishing and to respect nature.
Below please find the complete statement from the Pontifical Council for Migrants:
World Fisheries Day Message
(21th November 2014)
“Fishing is in fact one of the oldest and arduous human activity and it is generally poorly paid or rewarded. The forms of fishing are as many and varied almost as the kind of fish that they catch. Like all seafarers, fishers most of the time are sailing and spend very little time with their family and, on account of their way of life, they are often marginalized and deprived of the ordinary pastoral ministry” .
On the annual celebration of World Fisheries Day, the Apostleship of the Sea (AOS) International would like to draw attention to the fishing sector that provides employment and livelihood for circa 58.3 million people, of which 37 percent are engaged full time.
In this day, I would like to call on all the national and local AOS to renew their commitment to establish a significant presence in fishing ports and develop specific programmes to make fishers and their families an integral part of the local Christian community, giving them the opportunity to express themselves and their needs without being isolated.
Ratification of the Work in Fishing Convention (2007) C 188
Fishing is recognized as one of the most dangerous profession in the world with hundreds of lives lost at sea every year and many more affected by occupational hazards. Fishers can be easily exploited, abused and become victims of trafficking and forced labor,as it has been reported and documented in the mass media.
Once ratified, the Work in Fishing Convention (2007) C 188, adopted at the 96thInternational Labour Conference of the International Labour Organization (ILO), will be a useful tool, if not to totally eradicate these circumstances at least to improve them by bringing additional protection and benefits. As a matter of fact, the objectives of the Convention are to ensure that all fishers engaged in commercial fishing operations have decent working conditions on board of the fishing vessels with regard to accommodation and food; occupational safety and health protection; medical care and social security.
The Convention will enter into force 12 months after the date on which ten Members, eight of which are coastal States, will ratify it. As of April 17th 2014, the Work in Fishing Convention, 2007 (No. 188) has been ratified by: Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Congo, Morocco, and South Africa.
It is necessary that AOS around the world continue to lobby at regional and national level for its ratification. Meetings, seminars or workshops should be organized to present, explain and inform government people, fishers and fishers’ organizations on the structure and contents of the Convention and have it ratified. Until this goal is achieved, fishers will continue to be abused, exploited and die at sea.
A new approach to fishing
Our oceans and their resources are under an enormous pressure. A report from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) indicates that 30 percent of the world’s fisheries stocks are currently being overexploited, depleted or are recovering from depletion.
This is caused by a number of factors such as: by-catch of species (marine mammals, seabirds, turtles, etc.) unintentionally caught in fishing gears; discards as part of the catch to be returned to the sea as their marketing is prohibited or not commercially viable. Fishing, especially trawling, also has a direct impact on the habitat in which it takes place. To all this we have to add the climate changes, the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, pollution and the use of dynamite and cyanide.
Since time immemorial, fishing has been a source of food for humankind and made major contributions to fishing nations’ economies, employing millions of people worldwide and feeding millions more. However, as we have reached a critical point, it is necessary to practice responsible fishing and respecting nature; the risk is that within a limited period of time many coastal communities that are relying on fishing for their subsistence and economy, will lose their source of livelihood. As Pope Francis reminds us: “This is one of the greatest challenges of our time: changing to a form of development which seeks to respect creation.[…]This is our sin: exploiting the land and not allowing it to give us what it has within it.”
May the Blessed Virgin, often prayed and invoked with different appellatives by fishers and their families, continue to extend her maternal protection to all the fishing communities and support the AOS Chaplains and volunteers involved in this apostolate.
Antonio Maria Cardinal Vegliò
President
Bishop Joseph Kalathiparambil
Secretary
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) People will forgive a weak priest or pastoral minister, but they will not forgive a greedy one or one who mistreats people, said Pope Francis at Mass Friday morning as he marked the feast of Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary with a prayer that she help us keep the Lord’s Temple clean. Basing his homily on the Gospel of the Day in which Jesus drives the merchants from the Temple because they had turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves, Pope Francis said in doing so Jesus was purifying the Temple of God because it had been profaned and with it the People of God. The Temple had been defiled with the gravest of sins: scandal. “People are good – continued Pope Francis- people went to the Temple and did not look at these things, they sought God and prayed … but they had to change their money into coins to make offers”. The people of God did not go to the Temple for these people, for those who were selling things, they went because it was the Temple of God” and “there was corruption that scandalized the people”. Pope Francis recalled the biblical story of Anna, a humble woman, mother of Samuel, who goes to the temple to ask for the grace of a child: “she whispered her prayers silently” while the priest and his two sons were corrupt, they exploited the pilgrims, they scandalized the people. “I think of how our attitude can scandalize people – said Pope Francis – with unpriestly habits in the Temple: the scandal of doing business, the scandal of worldliness … How often when we enter a church do we see – even today – do we see a price list hanging there “for baptism, blessings, Mass intentions”. And people are scandalized”. “Once , as a newly ordained priest, I was with a group of college students and one couple wanted to get married. They went to a parish, but they wanted a wedding ceremony with the Mass. And, the parish secretary there said: ‘No, no, you cannot’ – ‘Why can’t we have a Mass? If the Council always recommends people to have a ceremony with the Mass … ‘-‘ No, you cannot, because it can’t last more than 20 minutes’-‘ But why? ‘-‘Because there are other slots [in the timetable for ceremonies]’-‘But, we want the Mass! ‘-‘ So you will have to pay for two slots! ‘. So in order to have a wedding ceremony with the Mass had to pay two slots. This is the sin of scandal”. The Pope added: “We know what Jesus says to those who are the cause of scandal: ‘Better to be thrown into the sea'”. ” When those who are in the Temple – be they priests, lay people, secretaries, but who manage the Temple, who ministry of the Temple – become businessmen, people are scandalized. And we are responsible for this. The laity too! Everyone. Because if I see this in my parish, I have to have the courage to say these things to the parish priest. And the people are scandalized. It is interesting: the people of God can forgive their priests, when they are weak; when they slip on a sin … the people know how to forgive them. But there are two things that the people of God cannot forgive: a priest attached to money and a priest who mistreats people. This they cannot forgive! It is scandalous when the Temple, the House of God, becomes a place of business, as in the case of that wedding: the church was being rented out”.
Jesus “is not angry” – said the Pope – “it is the Wrath of God, zeal for the House of God” because you cannot serve two masters, “either you worship the living God, or your worship money”. ” Why does Jesus have an issue with money? Because redemption is free; it is God’s free gift, He comes to brings us the all-encompassing gratuity of God’s love. So when the Church or churches start doing business, then it is said that ….salvation is not so free…This is why Jesus takes the whip to hand to carry out this act of the purification of the Temple. Today the Liturgy celebrates the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in the Temple: as a young girl … A simple woman, like Anna, and in that moment the Blessed Virgin Mary enters. May she teach all of us, pastors and those who have pastoral responsibility, to keep the Temple clean, to receive with love those who come, as if each one were the Blessed Virgin”. (from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Saying people and not money create development, Pope Francis called on Thursday for courageous initiatives to rethink our economic system and not become slaves of money. His remarks came in a video message delivered to participants attending a Festival of Social Doctrine in the Italian city of Verona promoted by the local Church.
The Pope urged people not to become discouraged by the economic crisis but instead turn their energies towards ways of “rethinking our economic model and the world of work.” He warned that “the great temptation” when faced with these difficulties is to concentrate “on tending our own wounds and use that as an excuse to not heed the cry of the poor” and all those who are suffering because they have lost their jobs and the dignity that goes with that. The risk, he went on, is that “this indifference makes us blind, deaf and dumb”, closed in to the outside world and only concerned with ourselves.
Pope Francis spoke instead of the need to move beyond and “abandon the stereotypes which are considered safe and guaranteed” in order to respond to the real needs of people. In the field of economics, he went on, we urgently need to take the initiative because “the system tends to homogenize everything and money becomes its master.” Taking the initiative in this field, he added, means having the courage not to allow ourselves to be imprisoned and subsequently enslaved by money.
The true problem explained the Pope “is not money as such but people.” This is because “money by itself does not create development” but instead we need people who have the courage to take the initiative. Pope Francis stressed that taking the initiative in this way means overcoming a tendency to always ask the state or other bodies for assistance but instead use our creative talents to find new ways of earning a living.
He concluded his address by expressing his concern over the high number of unemployed young people, saying we need to invest more in them and give them a great deal of confidence.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis paid tribute on Thursday to Blessed Pope Paul the 6th and his great love for the Mother of God, saying he always turned to Mary at crucial and difficult moments for the Church and humanity. The Pope’s words came during a message which was read on his behalf by the Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin at a public meeting of the Pontifical Academies whose theme was “Mary, Icon of God’s infinite beauty. During the meeting Cardinal Parolin awarded a prize in the name of the Pope to the Italian Mariological Association for its long-standing publication of the Theotokos Review.
Quoting from his encyclical Evangelii gaudium , the Pope reminded his audience that he has entrusted the way of the Church to the maternal and caring intercession of Mary and that there is a Marian style in the evangelizing activity of the church. This, he went on, is because every time we look at Mary we return to believe in the revolutionary strength of tenderness and affection. In her, we see the humility and the tenderness that are not virtues of the weak but of the strong and who don’t need to mistreat others in order to feel self-important.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The search for full Christian unity remains a priority for the Catholic Church and it is one of the Pope’s principle daily concerns. That was the message that Pope Francis shared on Thursday with members of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity who are taking part in a plenary session in the Vatican this week. The meeting includes a public commemoration at the Gregorian University on Friday of the 50th anniversary of the Vatican II decree ‘Unitatis Redintegratio’. That document marked the start of a new era in the Catholic Church’s relations with Christians of all different denominations. Philippa Hitchen reports:
Listen:
In a letter given to participants during a meeting at Santa Marta, the Pope notes that the Vatican II teaching, contained in ‘Unitatis Redintegratio’, as well as the other two ecclesiological texts ‘Lumen Gentium’ and ‘Orientalium Ecclesiarum’ has been fully embraced. Earlier hostility and indifference that caused such deep wounds between Christians, the Pope says, have given way to a process of healing that allows us to welcome others as brothers and sisters, united in our common baptism.
This changed mentality, he says, must penetrate ever more deeply into the theological teachings and pastoral practise of dioceses, institutes of consecrated life, associations and ecclesial movements. At the same time, he adds, this anniversary offers an opportunity to give thanks to God that we can now appreciate all that is good and true within the life of the different Christian communities.
Pope Francis thanks all those who, over the past half century, have pioneered this process of reconciliation and he mentions the important role that ecumenical translations of the Bible have played in developing closer cooperation among Christians.
But as we give thanks, the Pope says, we must also recognise continuing divisions and new ethical issues which are complicating our journey towards unity in Christ. Rather than being resigned to the difficulties, he says, we must continue to trust in God who plants seeds of love in the hearts of all Christians.
Finally the Pope calls for a renewed commitment to spiritual ecumenism and to the rediscovery of shared Christian martyrdom. Spiritual ecumenism, he says, is that global network of communal moments of prayer, united gestures of charity and shared reflections on the web which circulate like oxygen, contributing to the growth of understanding, respect and mutual esteem. Ecumenism of the martyrs, he notes, continues today wherever our brothers and sisters sacrifice their lives for their faith, since those who persecute Christ’s followers make no distinction between the different Christian confessions.
In my many encounters or correspondence with other Christians, Pope Francis concludes, I see a strong desire to walk and pray together, to know and love the Lord and to work together in the service of the weak and suffering. On this common journey, he says, I am convinced that, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can learn from each other and grow into the communion which already unites us.
(from Vatican Radio)…