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bbc.com/news/world-asia-33647390
Every southern summer for the past 57 years, Catholic priests from New Zealand have packed their warmest clothes and travelled some 4,000km (2,500 miles) south, to the frozen wastelands of the Antarctic.
New Zealand’s Catholic Church has had an annual invitation from the US National Science Foundation to spend their summer months at the Chapel of the Snows at the remote US McMurdo Station on Ross Island, serving the spiritual needs of the scientists and researchers based there.
But a combination of cost-cutting and a fall in demand means that, this year, the Americans have decided the last Kiwi priest has said Mass on the ice.
“We’re really sad,” says one of those priests, Father Dan Doyle, from his home in Christchurch.
“After 60 years of ministry at the end of the Earth - a great challenge in an amazing place - to be told that we’re not needed anymore… it’s a bit sad.”
Father Doyle has been the leader of New Zealand’s Antarctic Ministry for the past 15 years, spending 14 summers at the base as priest to a maximum summertime population of2,000.
In the winter, when the Antarctic falls dark, the population drops to about 150 essential staff.
He was “just an ordinary fellow” when he took up the challenge, he says, but it was “a joy to be involved”.
Each day there was varied, he says, as he worked alongside his Protestant counterparts.
“When I’m on the ice, we have a church service every day. On Sundays we get big numbers, on weekdays a small number.”
The priests also went out to the work places, office and labs, offering support and encouragement, and checking on people’s wellbeing.
They would often receive calls from people worried about their workmates, so “we’ll occasion on them and ask how things are going”.
Life so far from home can be hard, especially for those involved in stressful work in tough living conditions.
“People get very isolated,” he says. "Thirty years ago, when I was first there, we didn’t have all the wonderful digital communications we do now.
“We could get a two-minute ham radio call once a month. Nowadays there’s Skype and email, and great internet and telephone communications, so it’s much less stressful.”
Once every couple of weeks, they would even travel to the South Pole - a 1,360km (845 miles) journey - to conduct religious services or Mass at the Amundsen-Scott Base, the southernmost inhabited place on Earth.
The article continues online.
Every southern summer for the past 57 years, Catholic priests from New Zealand have packed their warmest clothes and travelled some 4,000km (2,500 miles) south, to the frozen wastelands of the Antarctic.
New Zealand’s Catholic Church has had an annual invitation from the US National Science Foundation to spend their summer months at the Chapel of the Snows at the remote US McMurdo Station on Ross Island, serving the spiritual needs of the scientists and researchers based there.
But a combination of cost-cutting and a fall in demand means that, this year, the Americans have decided the last Kiwi priest has said Mass on the ice.
“We’re really sad,” says one of those priests, Father Dan Doyle, from his home in Christchurch.
“After 60 years of ministry at the end of the Earth - a great challenge in an amazing place - to be told that we’re not needed anymore… it’s a bit sad.”
Father Doyle has been the leader of New Zealand’s Antarctic Ministry for the past 15 years, spending 14 summers at the base as priest to a maximum summertime population of2,000.
In the winter, when the Antarctic falls dark, the population drops to about 150 essential staff.
He was “just an ordinary fellow” when he took up the challenge, he says, but it was “a joy to be involved”.
Each day there was varied, he says, as he worked alongside his Protestant counterparts.
“When I’m on the ice, we have a church service every day. On Sundays we get big numbers, on weekdays a small number.”
The priests also went out to the work places, office and labs, offering support and encouragement, and checking on people’s wellbeing.
They would often receive calls from people worried about their workmates, so “we’ll occasion on them and ask how things are going”.
Life so far from home can be hard, especially for those involved in stressful work in tough living conditions.
“People get very isolated,” he says. "Thirty years ago, when I was first there, we didn’t have all the wonderful digital communications we do now.
“We could get a two-minute ham radio call once a month. Nowadays there’s Skype and email, and great internet and telephone communications, so it’s much less stressful.”
Once every couple of weeks, they would even travel to the South Pole - a 1,360km (845 miles) journey - to conduct religious services or Mass at the Amundsen-Scott Base, the southernmost inhabited place on Earth.
The article continues online.
