By Jessica Easthope

Without Christ’s body and blood, a church is no more than brick and mortar.

Most Precious Blood in Astoria Queens has been built and renovated to withstand. The job, done by Zaskorski and Associates, took 15 years to complete.

“The building is a gem, early Art Deco design, and so on many levels, the building is interesting and exciting and important to preserve,” said Carlo Zaskorski, Founding Principal of Zaskorski and Associates Architects.

The roofing, facade, stained glass windows, wall, and bell tower were just some of what was restored on what Carlo Zaskorski calls an Art Deco masterpiece.

“You have to understand the design and significance and keep in mind in the repair that you were not to damage or build anything that was not correct or original or part of the original design,” Zaskorski said.

Zaskorski’s firm has renovated 20 churches across the Diocese of Brooklyn, but two stand out. Renovations at Most Precious Blood and St. John the Baptist in Bedford Stuyvesant has received the Lucy G Moses Award, the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s highest honor.

“It’s very exciting,” Zaskorski said. “You work on a project, and an organization like the New York Landmarks Conservancy recognizes the work you did and says you did a good job that’s very valuable.”

“It was a life-changing experience,” said Jason Galindo, Assistant Project Manager at Zaskorski and Associates Architects. “Seeing the church on a different level, seeing it as I have to protect and inspect every brick, every stone, it was a surreal moment.”

Galindo finds that his two jobs intertwine. In addition to his job at the firm, Galindo works nights and weekends as the youth minister at St. Brigid Church in Bushwick. He came into the job when the existing youth program was feeling the effects of the pandemic, but he built that back too from the ground up and now has 160 kids registered.

“When I came in it was literally a fresh start and I had to bring them back,” Galindo said. “I thought the best way to do this was a program called Faith and Sports.”

Carlo and Galindo’s Catholic faith has become a tool of the trade in renovating churches.

They’ve removed and replaced, redesigned, and reimagined, but Christ remains the cornerstone of every job they do.

Zaskorski and Associates will be presented with the Lucy G Moses Awards at a ceremony on April 10 at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.

After a container ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore March 26 causing its collapse, news reports mentioned how members of Baltimore’s Apostleship of the Sea had reached out to and cared for the ship’s crew members.

Hours after the bridge collapse, Andy Middleton, the group’s director, said that he had been in touch with a member of the crew of the ship, Dali, just after the collision and found out that everyone on board was safe and uninjured.

He also told the Catholic Review, the official news outlet of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, that members of the outreach group, based at St. Rita’s Parish in Dundalk, had delivered Easter boxes to Dali’s crew members just days before the crash.

Apostleship of the Sea is not just a ministry of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, but part of a national and global outreach of the Catholic Church that provides pastoral care to those who work at sea.

The ministry, which started in Glasgow, Scotland in 1920, has been in Baltimore for 21 years. Four years ago, the international group officially changed its name to Stella Maris (Star of the Sea), but many still call it by its initial name.

Two years after the organization formed, Pope Pius XI gave it his blessing and encouraged the Apostleship of the Sea to extend its mission to the waterways and shores of all hemispheres. In every major country, an Apostleship of the Sea bishop promoter oversees the work of a national director whose responsibility it is to coordinate the chaplains’ efforts and assist them in developing their ministries.

In most major ports around the world, the diocese assigns a chaplain — a priest, deacon, religious, or lay ecclesial minister — to serve mariners aboard ship and ashore on merchant vessels, cruise ships, and docks.

The chaplains provide, or find someone to provide, Catholic Mass, and sacraments of reconciliation and anointing of the sick, along with pastoral care. They also work to ensure a safe work environment and fair contracts and provide a welcome and safe haven while sea workers are in ports. The group also oversees chaplains on board cruise ships.

In the U.S., the Stella Maris ministry has a presence in 53 maritime ports in 48 archdioceses and dioceses in 26 states. There are over 100 chaplains and pastoral teams are made up of priests, deacons, religious, and lay ministers.

Globally, Stella Maris has more than 200 chaplains and over 700 volunteer ship visitors supporting seafarers and fishers in ports in more than 50 countries. It is the largest ship-visiting network, and its network of chaplains and volunteers makes more than 70,000 visits to ships in a normal year.

Two years ago, national directors, chaplains and volunteers of this ministry met in Glasgow to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their outreach that had been postponed by the pandemic. In a message to the group, Pope Francis thanked them for their work and urged them to continue standing up for people struggling to make a livelihood from the sea.

A key concern, he said, is how climate change is impacting people who fish for a living as well as those who staff large ships.

“Creation, our common home, is comprised of a vast expanse of water, which is essential for life and human commerce, not to mention tourism,” he said. “It should not be surprising, therefore, that around 90% of the world’s goods are transported by ships, which is made possible by the daily work of over one and a half million people, many of whom are far removed for months at a time from the support of their families as well as their social and religious communities.”

By Jessica Easthope

Staff at Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii are already fielding questions from people wanting to donate and help after Sunday’s devastating fire, but during his visit, Monday, Bishop Robert Brennan said what the church needs more than anything is prayer.

Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii on Seigel Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn is in ruins after a fire ripped through the parish center and rectory. The flames sent parishioners running during Easter Sunday mass.

“It was our last service of the day, everybody was happy,” said Mariluz Cruz a secretary at the church. She was attending the 1:15 p.m. Spanish mass on Easter Sunday when the fire broke out, she suffered burns to her hand but says she barely remembers what happened after she saw the smoke.

“It was so hot, we just had to go back I don’t know what happened after that, one parishioner said she told me get, out get out but I didn’t even hear that,” she said.

Mariluz and nearly 150 others were in the pews, celebrating the most joyous day of the year when thick black smoke came pouring out of the door to the sacristy. Fr. Romulo Marin was celebrating the Spanish mass.

“I took the fire extinguisher but the fire was too strong I burnt my hand a little bit and when I attempted to get out the roof collapsed,” he said.

There were a few minor injuries among parishioners and first responders. Bishop Robert Brennan, who was at the scene, Monday says he’s grateful for the FDNY’s response.

“Thank God people are by and large safe and thank God for the fine people in our fire department, their courage and generosity and quick response, I can’t say enough,” Bishop Brennan said.

Though the rectory and parish center are destroyed it appears the church made it out of the fire with just a bit of smoke and water damage.

” God was protecting us,” said Mariluz. “There’s some meaning there for me.”

The cause of the fire is still under investigation as officials continue to map out the next steps in starting renovations to the church.