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Divine vacation

Photo by Doug Baird

Dennis Donovan started serving as the resident chaplain on various cruise lines in 1990.

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By MARILYN BROWN

Tribune correspondent

Published: July 2, 2009

Updated: 07/03/2009 01:56 pm

TAMPA - It may be the greatest gig on earth.

"I keep telling people I literally have to die and go to heaven for it to get any better than this," says the Rev. Bill Gold, who should know.

The 69-year-old Catholic priest from Oceanside, Calif., has spent the past six years cruising the world full time.

"I loved it from the very beginning," he says. "It becomes your lifestyle, not your vacation."

He returned from his 134th sailing - his third world cruise - in May.

More than 700 priests from around the world, including at least one from Tampa, work on cruise ships through the Apostleship of the Sea of the United States of America. For a $60 annual membership and - at most - the cost of travel to and from ports, the priests preside over daily Mass for passengers, weekly Mass for crew and a Sunday non-denominational service. They also may hear confessions, deliver last rites and minister to the crew and passengers.

In 2007, Gold was the cruise ship chaplain when a private tour float plane crashed and burned in the Alaska woods, killing several ship passengers who were aboard. Sometimes passengers and crew die of natural causes during a cruise, especially the long world tours that draw mostly retirees.

Tampa's Dennis Donovan, 55, assisted the ship's official chaplain in delivering last rites and overseeing a burial at sea about two years ago when a crew member had a miscarriage.

"The couple had a tremendous turnout," the Rev. Donovan says, recalling the midnight ceremony. "The crew is a family."

Donovan, director of the Mary Help of Christians Center, started serving as the resident chaplain on various cruise lines in 1990.

"You actually do get very busy as a priest," he says. Passengers take advantage of a spiritual adviser who doesn't live in their hometown, someone they can speak to candidly. "Some have not been to church in 20, 30 years. They figure, 'He's a priest. He doesn't know me. He won't be judgmental.'"

The Cruise Ship Priest Program has been run by the Apostleship of the Sea since 2003, when U.S. bishops asked it to take on the screening process, says Doreen Badeaux, secretary general of the Port Arthur, Texas, organization. Apostleship agreed mostly out of concern for the ships' crew members, many of whom come from predominately Catholic countries and are at sea for up to nine months.

"Cruise lines would get priests that were not in good standing," Badeaux says. "Some would show up with their wife and children. ... It was a very unregulated area."

Lines pay nominal fee

Badeaux serves as a liaison between priests and the cruise lines. The priests must get permission from their bishops each year to participate. They're screened by Apostleship, then evaluated by passengers and crew. The cruise lines pay Apostleship $100 a month for all the priests they can get.

The priests usually pay their own travel to and from the ship, though a last-minute assignment may come with airfare. They may get a cabin with a balcony or an inside bunk, or share space with the crew. Donovan found himself in a cabin right under the ship's horn during an Alaska cruise.

The memory of the horn's blast about 3 a.m. is unforgettable: "I thought it was the end of the world."

Surprisingly, not all priests behave themselves at sea. Badeaux has removed three from the program for issues including drinking too much and making inappropriate comments at Mass.

Cruise lines may also tag a priest as a "no rehire" for their own reasons. Some may be demanding or arrogant. One got the tag because his guest was doing "vastly inappropriate things."

Holland America and Celebrity place priests on all cruises, both say. During high holy days they usually add a rabbi, a Protestant minister or both.

Other lines find priests on their own or contact Badeaux only for high holy days and world cruises.

Unless they are in their collar, priests on board blend in with the other passengers.

On a 10-day eastern Caribbean cruise in February, the Rev. Ron Bagienski of the Diocese of Buffalo relaxed by the pool, broke bread and enjoyed shows with passengers. Each day, however, he donned his vestments and conducted daily Mass under the low lights of the movie theater on deck 3 of Celebrity's Constellation.

Most popular was Saturday's 5:15 p.m. service, with about 100 worshipers. Men wore everything from shorts and flip-flops to tuxedoes; women might be in capris or rhinestone-studded jackets.

A leisurely ministry

Bagienski works cruises during vacation time, prioritizing his choices from lists provided by the Apostleship of the Sea. He's been on a dozen, most of them not terribly demanding from a spiritual point of view.

"The biggest things are minor accidents: broken arms, slipping on the deck, missing a step. A passenger on one shore excursion got beat up pretty bad. He rented a motor scooter and ran into an open car door.

"If anything, it's a leisurely way to do ministry," Bagienski says. "You get a chance to take care of people while you look out the window, see the water floating by."

The best part: "How the passengers and crew so graciously receive you. Everyone's a little more lighthearted."

For someone like Gold, vacation has turned into the few days between cruises. He maintains his weight in the face of an endless food supply by not always finishing everything on his plate. He doesn't drink alcohol but buys his own stock of nonalcoholic brews.

Gold's tuxedo for formal evenings was custom-made in Hong Kong, and he says he's pretty good at washing out light articles in the sink.

He also packs more than two decades' worth of inspiration.

"I'm preaching all my good material," he says. "It's the good stuff, so they're learning something."

The cruise ministry also fills his own needs: Without it, holidays can be a little tough, he says. "This gives me community, this gives me people."

That includes crew members. Priests can't perform marriages on the ships, but Gold was able to give one couple prenuptial instructions during a 15-day cruise in 2006, then flew to Spokane, Wash., a few months later to perform their wedding.

On June 19, he left for four back-to-back, seven-day Alaska cruises for Celebrity, followed by 24 days on Cunard's Queen Mary, booked through an agency. Before year's end, his schedule includes 67 days for a Grand Pacific voyage, a seven-day return to Alaska and another 16 cruising the Panama Canal.

"It's quite a blessing, the way I look at it," he says.

BILL GOLD'S SUPERLATIVES

Most beautiful port: Sydney, Australia

Most exciting: Hong Kong Harbor. "It's frenetic."

Strange: The Arctic Circle. "Weird in a very beautiful way."

Standout side trips: Riding elephants in Thailand; flying to the Taj Majal at 4 a.m.

Most demanding: Ministering to family and crew after a private float plane crashed and burned in Alaska with several cruise passengers on board.

Learned about people: The passengers and crew are all nationalities and religious backgrounds. "And it works."

Most memorable service: Holy Saturday 2008 cruising the Red Sea and heading to the Suez Canal. He introduced a rabbi who read from the Book of Exodus.

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