Apostleship of the Sea’s Unique Mission to Dali Crew After the Key Bridge Tragedy

“How did I become director of the Apostleship of the Sea?” Andrew Middleton asks. “My wife had a consignment shop next door to the ministry in the Dundalk Village shopping center and Monsignor FitzGerald, who was a good fisherman, had befriended her.

Whenever Monsignor FitzGerald saw me in the shop, he’d ask me to help carry a box of supplies or something in,” he continues with a good-natured laugh. “Which was, you know, setting the hook: ‘Would you be interested in volunteering one day a week?’ That became two days. Somehow, it turned into three days. He slowly reeled me in.”

Part logistics hub, part chapel, and part internet café, Apostleship of the Sea provides outreach to 12,000 foreign  seafarers a year, many of whom use its Wi-Fi to Skype or video call far-flung family.

Volunteer van drivers also offer seamen, typically docked anywhere from 12 hours to a day or two, the chance to run errands, refill prescriptions—attend religious services if so inclined—and shop for themselves or loved ones at American stores like Best Buy. As Middleton notes, sailing the world on four- to nine-month contracts can be a lonely life, with missed holidays, weddings, children’s birthdays, and the funerals of parents.

A longtime Navy chaplain, Monsignor John FitzGerald established the nonprofit in 2003 after returning to the Archdiocese of Baltimore. It is part of an international organization with roots stretching back to Scotland in the 1920s, and a tradition of outreach to foreign sailors that dates back even further in Baltimore. (The Apostleship of the Sea has since moved to the former rectory of St. Rita’s parish in Dundalk. FitzGerald passed away two years ago at age 82.)

In fact, the day prior to the tragic crash of the Dali container ship into the Key Bridge, Middleton had driven the ship’s captain and one of its crew members over the bridge on the way to the big-box stores in Glen Burnie. An Apostleship of the Sea volunteer had also taken other Dali crew members to the Arundel Mills Mall.

In the still-dark early morning hours of March 26, Middleton exchanged text messages with the men to make sure that they and everyone on board were physically okay, unhurt.

“It was surreal obviously. In just an afternoon, you feel like you get to know the guys a bit,” Middleton says.

Of the 21 seamen aboard the Dali, nearly all were Indian, a group which included a handful of Catholics. The Dali management company reached out to Middleton to see if his organization could visit the crew, now stranded in the middle of the Patapsco. Middleton quickly said yes and asked if taking Mass to the Catholic seaman was a possibility as well.

“Bishop Adam Parker from the Archdiocese had expressed an interest in visiting with the crew and they were gracious enough to allow us to go to the ship [see photo of Middleton climbing a rope ladder from a tugboat up the side of the Dali, above]. We delivered care packages and spent about four hours with the entire crew. Or at least the crew that were available and weren’t assisting salvage workers and investigators that day.”

Middleton has also stayed in contact with Dali crew members, who are required to remain in Baltimore until the legal issues around the crash are resolved.

That the May 1 visit coincided with the annual Catholic Feast of St. Joseph the Worker was not lost on Bishop Parker, Middleton, or the men.

Afterward, Parker told the Catholic Review that five weeks following the tragic bridge collapse, which killed six Latino immigrant road workers, the Dali crew was still feeling deep anguish over the incident. The body of the fifth Key Bridge worker was recovered the same day as Middleton and Parker’s visit. The sixth and final body was pulled from the water one week later.

Before he began the religious service for the Catholic crew members, the bishop told the men that he was offering the  Mass for them and their families back home, and for the highway workers who lost their lives, placing a list of the names of the fallen workers on the makeshift altar. Afterward, a crew member asked for the list, so he could continue to pray for those who died.

“It meant a lot to him to know the names of the people and to be able to pray for them,” Parker said. “That moment is something that I will never forget.”

One of the engineers onboard lamented to the bishop that if the ship’s power had failed only five minutes later, the Dali would have been clear of the bridge. The captain eventually asked Middleton if the entangled bridge was the same one that they had ridden across roughly 12 hours before.

“I told him it was.”