I suggested that they make the relationship exclusive. I think Catholic organizations should offer consistent affirmation to businesses that respect the needs of the faithful, even if it means sacrificing the luxury of choice and, let’s face it, Celebrity’s superior levels of amenity and service.

Your dedication is an inspiration. May God bless you for it.

Taking a narrow view, Catholic Answers “looked after its own” in providing mass and reconciliation to its Alaska cruise patrons. And in the eyes of the cruise’s organizer, that might suffice.

But Catholic Answers presumes to a larger role as a defender and teacher of the Catholic faith. It missed an opportunity here, both to advocate for the spiritual needs of Catholics, and to instruct them and those who do business with them that Sunday and holyday mass attendance is a serious obligation, not to be missed lightly. Patronizing organizations that no longer respect this value sends the wrong message.

We are losing on this issue, and could use a powerful ally. It looks like Catholic Answers will not be that ally.

Bill

Thank you for your response and your persistence with Catholic Answers.

I kind of see both side of your issue with regards to the Catholic Answers cruise. The provide their own priest for their cruise group, so I think they feel that any cruise line is appropriate as long as they provide a suitable venue for their Masses. Most cruise lines are now not providing a Priest, Minister or Rabbi except at Christmas, Easter, or Jewish Holidays. So since this cruise tour includes their own priest they feel that they offer their cruisers another option other than just sailing the one and only line that still carries a priest on every cruise.

However, I still think that it is the ugly side of political correctness that has resulted in this change. On the last cruise I took with Catholic mass, the cinema was overflowing and they actually ran out of communion. So why would a cruise line discontinue a popular, relatively inexpensive “activity” because of the grumbles of a few is beyond me.

I see no postings to this thread in quite a while, so maybe you are not monitoring.

I should tell you that in January, I used the link you provided to the Catholic Answers Alaska cruise to send them a message questioning their choice of Celebrity for this cruise a full 18 months after its change of policy was made known (and was roundly criticized by the Catholic League, by the way, www.opposingviews.com/i/catholics-stiffed-by-celebrity-cruises ).
Not getting an answer, I posted another note to their cruise message board the next day. Still no answer. In June, I posted again using their “Contact Us “function on the Catholic Answers cruise page. Again no reply.

Apparently, they gleaned my email address from one or more of these messages, as I recently received an email solicitation for their spring 2012 cruise of the Mediterranean, this time using Holland American.

I replied, commenting on their failure to answer my previous emails, and suggesting that perhaps their choice of HAL was their reply to my protest, which I was sure was one of many.

A response has finally come from Maureen North, Director of Development for Catholic Answers. She stated that she could not find my email, and asked that I forward it. I couldn’t, due to the original method of sending the email, but attached the Word documents for the three messages and included a link to this page.

Maureen stated to me that their Alaska cruise was a big success, with 184 guests, and that Celebrity was very nice about their having mass, etc. No surprise there, as Celebrity on board service is great and, of course, Catholic Answers is a major customer, and a very influential one in Catholic circles.

She also stated to me that, of some 1 MILLION email solicitations sent for the Alaska cruise, I was the ONLY one whose reply questioned the use of Celebrity.

So there you have it. A representative of America’s leading organization dedicated to the teaching and explanation of Catholic doctrine and practice (apologetics) has told me that it’s 999,999-to-1 against my view, with the implication that I must be wrong.

That is not the way I remember being taught morality in Catholic school, but perhaps things have changed.

You have two choices to satify your desire and need to have a priest on board.

Sail on a different cruise line.

Invite your local priest to sail on that sailing. The cruise line would be more than happy to arrange some space.

Of course I have written to Celebrity, three times as a matter of fact.

As noted above, I emailed from the ship on Dec. 5, the morning of the priest’s non-arrival, and urged those who were with us at this first “Catholic Gathering” to do likewise. Most did not respond to me on this, or indicated they would comment on their post-cruise evaluations.

In my email, I asked two very specific questions:
• Given that we were told prior to booking, that “every effort” would be made to have a Catholic priest aboard, was there some extraordinary circumstance that prevented it, and if so, what?
• Had Celebrity changed its policy from the one in force December 8-22, 2008, when there was a priest?
The reply took two weeks, and did not answer either question:
We try to appease the many religious practices of all our guests in recognizing the services the same day of the week onboard as observed while ashore…” etc.

My answer to this noted its unresponsiveness, expressed my belief that we had been deceived and promised not to sail again on Celebrity or any Royal Caribbean affiliate.

I have yet to receive a reply to this email, nor to the follow-up I wrote after I discovered the difficult-to-find Celebrity website page on religious activities via a Google search:
www.celebritycruises.com/beforeyourcruise/faq/home.do?faqId=3977&faqSubjectName=Onboard+Services&pagename=faq_answers

It’s all there, but why did no one ever refer to or read from it in response to my various inquiries? That was my follow-up question. No response yet.

By the way, I saw no effort to arrange for in-port masses on Saturday or Sunday, something described on the web page as being done “(w)here available.” I would have been satisfied with mass on board or ashore on those days (plus December 7-8) and, if ashore, with some help in knowing when, where and how to get there. But no Celebrity employee proposed to do this. Perhaps we should have been pushier.

I think the issue with Celebrity is that the onshore customer service reps are sometimes in general not aware of on board issues. There are many times when passengers have called them to make an inquiry about any issue, not at all relating to religious services, and they provide incorrect information. I guess you were also not completely provided the correct information on board either, which is unusual as I have always found the on board service to be very professional.

I encourage you to contact Celebrity with a thoughtful letter stating why you will no longer be sailing with them. You may want to point out that Celebrity provides a variety of on board activities which not all passengers attend, and that this would provide another one of those activities/services to people who might not otherwise cruise at all!!!

Another option for Catholics is what my parents do when they cruise Carnival. They only chose 7 day cruises that depart on Sunday and return on Sunday. This way they can attend either early Sunday mass or Saturday anticipated mass on the embarkation side, and then attend mass on Sunday in the port town after disembarkation.

Please let me know if you write Celebrity and if you get any response from them at all. It may be time for my yearly letter on the subject as well.

When I sailed for two weeks aboard Infinity in December 2008, I thought that I had found my method of vacationing and my cruise line. Celebrity indeed seems to do almost everything well. If anything, our second voyage, on Constellation December 2010, was better than the first, with one nagging exception.

The deception has destroyed our trust, and I have told Celebrity that we will not cruise with them or with any Royal Caribbean affiliate again. RCL has the right to support or ignore religious observance as it pleases. But passengers have the right to make an informed choice about whether their needs will be served, and to expect the truth when they ask about how religious policies will affect them.

I cannot comprehend how Catholic Answers could direct their co-religionists to this cruise line, and have told them so.

When I heard a report that its policy had changed, I called Celebrity to verify. I was told “We make every effort” to have a priest on board, but that “We cannot guarantee it.” This sounded like, barring some unforeseen circumstance, there would be mass. We went ahead with our booking on Constellation for December 4-18.

Arriving on board I asked about mass at Guest Relations and was told “We can’t promise, but check the bulletin board,” which showed a “Catholic Gathering” in Cinema 3 every day at 8 AM. The next day, a Sunday at sea, a member of the cruise staff arrived at the gathering to tell us that a priest would be arriving in a few minutes. He returned a few minutes later to tell us that there was no priest on the ship.

That same morning, I emailed captainsclub@celebritycruises.com to register my dismay and ask if there had been some extraordinary circumstance, or if there had indeed been a change in policy. The response that came two weeks later answered neither question.

Later in the cruise I asked at Guest Relations whether we might have a priest come aboard on Sunday, December 12 in Tobago. I was told it was quite possible, as this was often done “since they took our priest away.” (The crew, who include many Catholics and who work seven-day, 60-70 hour weeks on six-month contracts, probably benefited the most from the ministry of the cruise priests.) It did not happen. We learned of the only mass ashore too late to attend.

Celebrity’s policy is fairly clearly explained if you are willing to slog through its website:

www.celebritycruises.com/beforeyourcruise/faq/home.do?faqId=3977&faqSubjectName=Onboard+Services&pagename=faq_answers

(I Googled “Catholic Mass Celebrity Cruises,” and found it.)

But no one of whom I inquired, on the phone before the cruise, at Guest Relations, or in response to my email, ever referred me to this page or quoted its contents.

Am I correct to think that I was deceived?

Luckily, I was told that a priest who happened to be on board had volunteered to do a Saturday night mass. When Saturday came, I was worried when I didn’t find it on the schedule. It was only posted on the “social” board along with the AA meetings. I guess that friends of Bill W and the friends of Jesus are looked at as just two types of addicts by Celebrity. I just don’t hope for recovery.

Anyway, the priest said that this was the 1st mass on board since Easter, over 4 months. Mass (daily or Sunday) was a key service that the lines offered, it should not be removed lightly.

In any case, if they are not willing to have priests cruise for free, I’m sure lots of clergy would do mass on a volunteer basis when they are cruising at their own cost or if they only got a discount! We all like the boats, but we want our masses!

A cruise ship is like miniature city with all kinds of people. Just because you don’t benefit from the services of a priest, doesn’t mean that a cruise ship should not consider having one if it would be of benefit enough of their passengers.

Priests are not employed but contracted guests a cruise line, they only receive free passage and meals, not a salary from the cruise line.

As upsetting as this was to me, I kept thinking about how horrible for the crew not to have a priest. After all, I was only there 2 weeks; they had to put up with it for months at a time. No Mass, no communion, no confession… I loved the cruise, but I will never book with Celebrity again — having no Mass was just awful. I will only book cruises where I am certain that a priest is aboard. I did say this on my guest survey Celebrity asks you to fill out on the cruise. I guess I’m only going with Holland America or Costa from now on.

One could argue that not very many passengers would utilize the services of a priest onboard. But I also enjoy listening to the string quartet, which is composed of 4 people, and they only have a handful of people in their audience every night. The string quartet gets paid; a priest just gets his cruise compped. So why not a priest onboard? I just don’t understand it.

Even more special is having the Blessed Sacrament on board Costa at all times.