Last year, 3,157 foreign vessels docked at Port Metro Vancouver. In addition to the more than 139 million tonnes of cargo, those ships carried tens of thousands of crew, doing sometimes dangerous work, most of them far from home, many in need of assistance material and spiritual.
With the exception of cruise ships, it is a rare vessel that sails into Burrard Inlet (or Roberts Bank) that does not receive a visit from a clergyperson or volunteer associated with Vancouver’s Mission to Seafarers.
More than 150 years ago, priests in the Church of England recognized that sailors had a particular need for pastoral care, says Rev. Nick Parker, an Anglican priest and Mission to Seafarers’ senior port chaplain in Vancouver. The church founded what was then called Mission to Seamen “in about 1857, give or take,” Parker says, and a Vancouver chapter emerged out of St. James Anglican Church on East Cordova at the end of the 19th century, officially joining the international group in 1903.
Since then, the Anglicans have opened the door to share the task of reaching out to crew members with representatives of the Roman Catholic and Christian Reformed churches, mostly because those two denominations already had active seafaring ministries. But the two locations out of which the mission operates are Anglican facilities and the president of the organization is always the bishop of the local Anglican diocese.
Despite its overtly religious underpinnings, many, if not most, of the interactions the mission has are not related to religion at all.
“It can range from sports and weather to where to find things, to spiritual, pastoral matters to administrative things like banking, doing money transfers,” says Parker. “It’s just really a friendly chat. We welcome them, we give them directions, let them know what services are provided for them or what they can access … We are often, other than maybe the longshoremen, one of the first group of people that they meet.”
Canadians might be willing to wait months for a doctor’s appointment, he notes, but a sailor might have a window of four hours to get a medical condition checked out.
Parker is perfectly happy to help out and to serve as Vancouver’s concierge to the seafaring world.
“I think it was Francis of Assisi who said, ‘Preach the gospel always and, if you must, use words.’ I think it’s by our caring action, our willingness to be present for them, that is the hallmark of the mission,” he says.
Caring for the people who bring foreign goods to our shores is part of Parker’s effort to recognize the work of those who are critical to our everyday life in Canada.
“Most people never realize that the clothes they wear on their back came in a container from some country somewhere and that there are real people who are helping in the transportation of those goods, carrying 90-odd per cent of the goods back and forth across the oceans of this world in this global economy,” he says. “The mission is one of the best kept secrets. We have a very quiet ministry that for about 112, 113 years, we’ve been quietly working on the waterfront, generation after generation, looking after the needs of the seafarers, whatever they may be.”
That goes for people of all religions (or none), too, he says.
“Our raison d’être for being is because we are a Christian mission, but that being said … if someone were to come here and say I need an imam or if someone wanted a Buddhist priest, we would find one,” says Parker. “In that sense, we engage all faiths, all cultures, sexual orientations, you name it. We are here for them. If they have a specific need from either their cultural or their religious stance or language for that matter, we will attempt to meet that need.”
Parker’s Catholic colleague Father John Eason operates out of Holy Rosary Cathedral and has been greeting sailors for 17 years.
“I board the vessels, go up the gangway, visit the men, whoever is available, and give them reading material like National Geographic magazines, give them a spiritual bouquet of a rosary, Miraculous Medal [a medallion of St. Mary], a picture of Jesus and Mary, a confession guide so they can have an examination of conscience and some spiritual material they can keep in their room,” says Eason.
He gets a crew list and especially targets names that sound Polish or Croatian, because they are highly likely to be Catholic. But, like Parker, he’s open to all.
“It’s interesting with the Hindus,” he says. “They have all these gods and goddesses. Another God? Sure, why not? More protection. The more powers above me to look after me, fine, that’s all the better for me.
“How could you go against that thinking?” he says laughing. “It’s great thinking.”
PacificSpiritPJ@gmail.com
@Pat604Johnson
