‘Traveling padre’ helps out near the Antarctic Circle

Msgr. Pablo Sicilia greets the congregation outside the Catholic church in the Falkland Islands where he helped out this summer. Photo provided

SAN ANTONIO • The retirement ministry of Msgr. Pablo Sicilia, better known as “the traveling padre,” most recently extended to the far south — the very far south of the Falkland Islands, just a few hundred frigid miles north of the Antarctic Circle.

Msgr. Sicilia, a resident of Casa de Padres retirement center for priests, serves as a chaplain aboard cruise ships and makes it a point, when stopping in a port, to visit with priests in the local parishes.

“That’s how I learned about the need for a Spanish-speaking priest,” he says of his recent two-month working stay at St. Mary’s Church in Stanley, the only Catholic church in the
Falkland Islands.

On a cruise last January he had stopped briefly in the Falklands, where he shared coffee with the islands’ sole priest, Father Peter Norris, and its prefect, Msgr. Michael B. McPartland. “Talking with them,” he said, “I saw the need for a Spanish-speaking priest and so I offered to go as a volunteer, since Spanish is my ‘bread and butter.’” (Msgr. Sicilia taught Spanish for 13 years at the Josephinum in Ohio, where he was responsible for establishing their Spanish program years ago, and his assignments over the years have involved his Spanish-speaking abilities.)

The Falklands, an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean off the tip of Argentina, is a territory of the United Kingdom with an English-speaking resident population, but there was an increasing need to minister to the Spanish-speaking Chilean workers who primarily staff the islands’ hotels and restaurants. “I would meet them when we ate out at restaurants,” said Msgr. Sicilia, regarding his two-month stay there. After awhile he got to know all the wait-staff and chefs.

In one of the hotels, a waiter told him of a young Chilean couple who wanted to get married in the church. He was a chef in one restaurant and she was a waitress in another. Msgr. Sicilia met with them for marriage instructions and gave them a letter to take to their parish priest when they returned to Chile. Like most of the Chilean residents of the Falklands, he noted, they did not plan to settle in the islands and were only working there temporarily.

The Falklands, comprised of two main islands and hundreds of smaller ones, has a population of between 3,000 to 4,000, of whom most are Anglican. The Catholic community is small and the congregation Msgr. Sicilia ministered to there consisted of only around 40 persons. “So small that everybody could come over for tea after Sunday Mass,” he said.

“We started a Spanish Mass on Saturday evenings,” he added, noting there was a good response. He also helped the priest there work on his Spanish and filled in when he took his vacation back to England.

Several farming families are scattered over a wide rural area and Msgr. Sicilia was able to take a flight around the island in the small plane that ferries passengers and supplies to them. “I even got to sit in the co-pilot’s seat,” he said, “so I got a good view of the Falklands. We flew over a pod of whales and some penguins.”

He also had the opportunity to minister to a Peruvian fisherman whose nephew had died unexpectedly of a heart attack at sea, with Stanley being the nearest port. After getting a call from the hospital that evening, Msgr. Sicilia spent time comforting the man and the next day offered a Mass for his nephew.

While talking with the fisherman, he learned he had never been baptized, but wished to be, so the monsignor gave him instructions and administered the sacraments of initiation. “He already knew a lot about the faith,” he said. “I guess he was just embarrassed to ask for baptism as an adult.”

Before leaving the islands, he took part in the Liberation Day ceremonies marking the British victory in the Falklands War, which occurred when Argentina briefly occupied and claimed the islands as theirs in 1982. Msgr. Sicilia and the prefect participated, along with the Anglican clergy, in the ceremonies that marked the various British landing sites.

“I’ve talked to a number of people who lived through that war,” he said, “and it was pretty scary.” The Argentines held the islands for three months, describing it as “liberating” the residents from “British colonial oppression,” he noted. “But,” he said, “they didn’t want to be liberated.”

“Several hundred soldiers and marines died,” he related, “mostly the Argentines — some from exposure because the weather was very cold and they picked the worst time of the year to invade.” He was told some of the Argentine soldiers were begging food from the local people, their situation was so bad.

Msgr. Sicilia celebrated his 48th anniversary as a priest and 74th birthday while in the Falklands, with the congregation throwing him a party, complete with cake. “I wish I could have stayed longer to get things more organized,” he said of his stay. “It was good, and they were glad to have a priest who could speak to them in their language and understand them.”