The three bishops responsible for the maritime apostolate in Spain, Portugal and France have denounced those responsible for the environmental and social disaster caused by the sinking of the oil tanker “Prestige” off the Galician coast, pointing their finger firmly against “a minority of powerful businesses, coalitions of interest and mafia-like ways of conducting affairs”, that “act with impunity and exercise the power of contaminating the sea and destroying its resources”. The three bishops Bishop Luis Quinteiro of Orense (Spain), Bishop Pierre Molères of Bayonne (France) and Bishop Januário Torgal Ferreira, military ordinary (Portugal) refer to the unscrupulous ship owners who allow floating wrecks like the “Prestige” to navigate under “flags of convenience” to evade controls on their safety standards and exempt them from maritime law. No lessons, complain the bishops, were learnt from the sinking of the oil tanker “Erika” on the coasts of Brittany three years ago: “the frequent exploitation of crews recruited from third world countries at the lowest possible costs” continues. They also express the fervent hope that “this widespread situation of injustice, corruption and irresponsibility may end as soon as possible”. “We wish to put on record write the bishops our refusal to succumb to fatalism, and our desire that Christian communities participate in everything that is being done in society in favour of seamen, and everything opposed to the destruction and degradation of the sea”.
