"…The sufferings faced to give us a good plate of seafood": Ministry to seafarers and fishers

Despite so much of the world’s wellbeing directly and indirectly related to the wellbeing of the seas, their creatures, and the people who work on the seas, I had never thought about what ministry on the high seas looks like. In this informative interview (see below), prepared by the Center for Migration Studies in New York City, Fr. Bruno Ciceri discusses the global work of the “Apostleship of the Sea,” and the ways that its ministries strive to address “the sufferings faced to give us a good plate of seafood.” Here he discusses the lives and work of seafarers and of fishers, and the kinds of pastoral interventions that can make a difference for the good. I found his discussion of ways to think about partnering with other organizations interesting, illustrating how ministries can form allegiances with “secular” agencies that open new concerns to both.
I would like to learn more about the theology that informs and/or emerges from such work. For example, listening to this interview, I thought of the many ways that bodies of water, fish, fishing, fishers, and boats are watery anchor points throughout many scriptures and religious traditions, and it made me curious about what it would be like to make freeing sense of religion from the vantage of those who know the seas, and their inhabitants, best. For more on that, I might need to read Fr. Ciceri’s new co-authored book, Fishers and Plunderers: Theft, Slavery, and Violence at Sea (Pluto Press, 2015).
I wonder if any of our APT members or friends have engaged with or learned from such sea-related ministries.
Tom Beaudoin, Fordham University