New York City, N.Y., Sep 11, 2017 / 12:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On the clear, sunny morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Fr. Kevin Madigan heard an explosion overhead.
He grabbed oils for anointing, ran out the door of St. Peter’s parish in New York City, and wandered towards the center of the commotion – the World Trade Center only a block away.
Fifty blocks uptown, Fr. Christopher Keenan, OFM watched with the world as the smoke rising from the twin towers darkened the television screen. Looking to help, he went to St. Vincent’s Hospital downtown to tend to those wounded in the attack – but the victims never came.
All the while, he wondered what had happened to a brother friar assigned as chaplain to the firefighters of New York City: Fr. Mychal Judge, OFM, named by some the “Saint of 9/11.”
Sixteen years ago on this day, hijackers flew planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. In a field in southern Pennsylvania, passengers retook control of the cockpit and crashed the plane before it could reach its intended target, presumed to be in Washington, D.C.
The consequences of the attacks have rippled throughout the United States as the attacks spurred a new global war on terror and irreversibly changed the country’s outlook on terror, security, and international engagement.
For Fr. Madigan, Fr. Keenan and Fr. Judge, the day changed their own lives and ministries, as a pastor lost nearly his entire congregation, and a friar put himself in harm’s way to take on a new position – an assignment he only received because another friar gave the ultimate sacrifice as the Twin Towers came down.
“This experience has seared our soul and our spirit and our life, and it has so seared our spirit and our life that it has penetrated our DNA,” Fr. Keenan told CNA.
“It has changed our lives and we will never be the same,” he said.
It was like losing a village
On Sept. 11, 2001, Fr. Kevin Madigan had been assigned to St. Peter’s Church in the financial district of Lower Manhattan. The parish is the oldest Catholic Church in New York State, “half a block literally from the corner of the World Trade Center,” Fr. Madigan explained to CNA.
“Prior to 9/11 it was a parish that basically serviced the people who came to the neighborhood who came to Mass or Confession, devotions and things like that.” The parish had a full and well-attended schedule of liturgies and prayers, with multiple Masses said during the morning and lunch hour. September 11th changed that.
“Immediately after 9/11, that community was no longer there, because it was like losing a village of 40,000 people next door.”
Fr. Madigan was leaving the sanctuary that morning, heading back to the rectory when overhead he heard the first plane hit the towers. Immediately he made his way towards the commotion, looking to minister to anyone who had been hurt by what had happened.
“I took the oils for anointing anyone who was dying – I didn’t know what was going on there,” he said. However, most of those fleeing the building did not need anointing, Fr. Madigan recalled. “Most people either got out alive or were dead. There weren’t that many people who were in that in-between area.”
Then, there was another explosion from the other tower, and an object – the wheel of an airplane, in fact – went whizzing by Fr. Madigan’s head.
“After the second plane hit I went back to the office and made sure all the staff got out of there fast,” evacuating staff who were unaware of the chaos outside.
Fr. Madigan was back on the street when firefighters began to wonder if the towers might fall.
Thinking it ridiculous, Fr. Madigan kept an eye on a nearby subway entrance, which linked to an underground passage north of the towers. Then, a massive cloud of dust swept towards Fr. Madigan and another priest as the towers did collapse; they ducked into the subway station, emerging amidst the thick smoke and dust several blocks away.
After the towers came down, Fr. Madigan made his way first to the hospital for an emergency health screening, then back to check on St. Peter’s. While he was away from his parish, firefighters and other first responders made use of the sanctuary, temporarily laying to rest over 30 bodies recovered from the wreckage.
The death of Father Mychal
In September of 2001, Fr. Christopher Keenan had been assigned to work with a community ministry program near the parish of St. Francis in midtown Manhattan. At St. Francis, he lived in community along with several other Franciscan Friars, including an old friend he had known for years – Fr. Mychal Judge, chaplain for the Fire Department of New York City. Through Fr. Judge, the Friars became especially close with some of their neighbors at a firehouse across the street, who let the friars park their car at the firehouse.
Although the plane flew overhead, Fr. Keenan told CNA that “like everyone else, we found out while watching TV.” As the friars and brothers watched the events unfold on the television, they saw the second plane hit the South Tower; Fr. Keenan decided to go to St. Vincent’s Hospital – one of the closest medical facilities to the Word Trade Center. At the time, he thought there would be injured people who would need to be anointed or would like someone to hear their confession.
However, once he got to St. Vincent’s he found a long line of doctors, nurses and other responders who had come to help: together they “were all waiting for these people to get out who never came.” Victims were either largely able to walk away on their own, or they never made it to the hospital at all.
Instead, Fr. Keenan told CNA, “my responsibility was after people were treated to contact their family members to come and get them.”
As patients began to go home, Fr. Keenan continued to wonder about his brother friar, Fr. Judge, asking firefighters if they knew what had happened to the chaplain. Fr. Keenan left the hospital in the early evening to go hear confessions, but stopped at the firehouse across the street to ask the firemen if they knew where Fr. Judge was: “they told me his body was in the back of the firehouse.”
The mere fact that his body was intact and present at the firehouse that day was in itself a small miracle, Fr. Keenan said. “Mychal’s body that was brought out was one of the only bodies that was intact, recognizable and viewable,” he said. Among those that died in the Twin Towers, he continued, “everyone was vaporized, pulverized and cremated” by the heat of the fire in the towers and the violence of the towers’ collapse. “He was one of the only ones able to be brought out and to be brought home.”
That morning, Fr. Judge had gone along with Battalion 1 to answer a call in a neighborhood close to the Trade Center. Also with the battalion were two French filmmakers filming a documentary on the fire unit. When the towers were hit, the Battalion was one of the first to arrive on the scene. In the film released by the brothers, Fr. Keenan said, “you can see his face and you can tell he knows what’s happening and his lips are moving and you can tell he’s praying his rosary.”
The group entered the lobby of the North Tower and stood in the Mezzanine as the South Tower collapsed – spraying glass, debris and dust throughout the building.
“All the debris roared through the glass mezzanine like a roaring train and his body happened to be blown into the escalators,” Fr. Keenan relayed the experience eyewitnesses told him. In the impact, Fr. Judge hit his head on a piece of debris, killing him almost instantly.
“All of a sudden they feel something at their feet and it was Mychal, but he was gone.“
Members of the fire department, police department and other first responders carried Fr. Judge’s body out of the wreckage, putting his body down first to run as the second tower collapsed, then again to temporarily rest it at St. Peter’s Church. Members of the fire department brought it back to the firehouse where Fr. Keenan saw his friend and prayed over his body.
Fr. Mychal Judge was later listed as Victim 0001 – the first death certificate processed on 9/11.
Despite the sudden and unexpected nature of the attacks, Fr. Keenan told CNA that in the weeks before his friend’s death, Fr. Judge had a sense his death was near.
“He just had a sense that the Lord Jesus was coming.” On several occasions, Fr. Keenan said, Fr. Judge had told him, “You know, Chrissy, the Lord will be coming for me,” and made other references to his death.
“He had a sense that the Lord was coming for him.”
The grueling aftermath
“There was no playbook for how you deal with something in the wake of something like that,” Fr. Madigan said of the aftermath of 9/11. Personally, Fr. Madigan told CNA, he was well-prepared spiritually and mentally for the senseless nature of the attacks.
“I understand that innocent people get killed tragically all the time,” he said, noting that while the scale was larger and hit so close to home, “life goes on.” For many others that he ministered to, however, “it did shake their foundations, their trust and belief in God.”
While the attacks changed the focus of his ministry as a parish priest at the time, they also posed logistical challenges for ministry and aid: St. Peter’s usual congregation of people who worked in and around the World Trade Center vanished nearly overnight. Instead, the whole area was cordoned off for rescue workers and recovery activities as the city began the long task of sorting and removing the debris and rubble.
In addition, a small chapel named St. Joseph’s Chapel, which was cared for and administered by St. Peter’s, was used by FEMA workers as a base for recovery activities during the weeks after the attack. During that time, the sanctuary was damaged and several structures of the chapel, including the pulpit, chairs and interior were rendered unusable. According to Fr. Madigan, FEMA denies that it ever used the space.
Still, the priests at St. Peter’s saw it as their duty to minister to those that were there – whoever they were.
“The parish, the church building itself was open that whole time,” he said, saying that anyone who had clearance to be within the Ground Zero area was welcome at the church. In the weeks after the attacks, the parish acted as sanctuary, as recovery workers who were discovering body parts and other personal effects “would come in there just to sort of try to get away from that space.”
“Myself and one of the other priests would be out there each day just to be able to talk to anyone who wants to talk about what’s going on,” he added. “We’d celebrate Mass in a building nearby.”
Today, Fr. Madigan has been reassigned to another parish in uptown Manhattan, and St. Peter’s now has found a new congregation as new residents have moved into the neighborhoods surrounding the former World Trade Center site.
Only two months after the attack, Fr. Keenan took on the role of his old friend, Fr. Judge: he was installed as chaplain for the 14,000 first responders of the the FDNY.
Immediately, Fr. Keenan joined the firefighters in their task of looking for the remains – even the most minute fragments – of the more than 2,600 people killed at the World Trade Center. “The rest of the recovery process then was for nine months trying to find the remains.”
For the firefighters in particular, there was a drive to find the remains of the 343 firefighters killed at the World Trade Center and help bring closure to the family members. “You always bring your brother home, you never leave them on the battlefield,” Fr. Keenan said.
The resulting amount of work, as well as the “intense” tradition among firefighters to attend all funerals for members killed in the line of duty meant that the job became all-consuming, with all one’s spare time spent at the World Trade Center site. Sometimes, Fr. Keenan said, he would attend as many as four, five, or six funerals or memorials a day – and many families held a second funeral if body parts were recovered from the site.
“Here are the guys, overtime, going to all the funerals, working spare time on the site looking for recovery, and taking care of the families,” he said. “I was 24/7, 365 for 26 months.”
In addition, Fr. Keenan and the rest of the FDNY worked inside “this incredible toxic brew” of smoke, chemicals and fires that burned among the ruins at Ground Zero for months.
“I would be celebrating Mass at 10:00 on a Sunday morning down there,” he recalled, “and just 30 feet from where I’m celebrating Mass at the cross, the cranes are lifting up the steel.”
While both buildings had contained more than 200 floors of offices, there was “not a trace of a computer, telephones, files, nothing. Everything was totally decimated.” Instead, all that was left was steel, dirt and the chemicals feeding the fires that smouldered underground in the footprint of the towers.
“The cranes are lifting up the steel and the air is feeding the fires underneath, and out of that is coming these incredible colors of yellow, black and green smoke, and we all worked in the recovery process.” The experience working the recovery at the World Trade Center site is one that Fr. Keenan considers a “gift” and an “honor.”
“It was an incredible experience really,” he said.
Fr. Keenan recounted a conversation the firefighters had with him a few days after he was commissioned. After pledging to “offer my life to protect the people and property of New York City,” the other firefighters told their new chaplain “we know you’re ours, don’t you forget that every one of us is yours,” promising to stand by their new shepherd. “I’m the most loved and cared for person in the world and who has it better than me?”
While the formal recovery process has ended and a new tower, One World Trade Center, stands just yards from the original site of Ground Zero, the experience – and the chemicals rescue workers came in contact with for months – still affect the firefighters.
In 2016 alone, “we put 17 new names on the wall,” said Fr. Keenan, “who died this past year from of the effects of 9/11.” He explained that in the years following the attack, thousands of rescuers and first responders – including Fr. Keenan himself, have developed different cancers and illnesses linked to their exposure at the World Trade Center site. In fact, at the time of the interview in 2016, Fr. Keenan had just returned from a screening for the more than 20 toxic chemicals the responders were exposed to. He warned that the “different cancers and the lung problems that are emerging are just the tip of the iceberg,” and worried that as time progressed, other cancers and illnesses linked to the attack recovery would emerge.
The first responders are also dealing with the psychological fallout of the attacks among themselves, Fr. Keenan said, though many are dealing with it in their own way, and with one another.
Looking back, Fr. Keenan told CNA he still finds it difficult to express the experience to others or to make sense of what it was like when he would go down into “the pit” to work alongside the firefighters and other first responders. “The only image I had as time went on and I asked ‘how do I make sense of this as a man of faith?’ is that it was like I was descending into hell and I was seeing the face of God on the people that were there.”
The same image had come to his mind to make sense of taking care of patients with AIDS in the 1990s he said, even though nothing can fully make sense of events like these.
“I was like a midwife to people in their birthing process from life to death to new life,” he recalled. “All I can do is be present there, they have to do the work, I can be present there I can pray with them.”
“That’s how in faith I kind of sort of comprehended it.”
This article was originally published on CNA Sept. 11, 2016.
[…]
Bishop McElroy squandered his moral credibility in 2016 when he endorsed Communion for those divorced and remarried (absent a declaration of nullity) and the “LGBT” slogan with its oxymoronic neologism “LGBT families.” Yes, a point is to be made that while abortion is a preeminent sin of direct commission (killing!), it should not distract from likely sins of more problematic omission—-if fatal eco-disasters are on the horizon and can be avoided, for vulnerable residents of spaceship earth.
Future generations should not be unwittingly cornered into triage situations whose unlikely rescue will be at the hands of either a new-world-order anthill or, alternatively, globalized profit-maximizing myopia. Or, something else more muddled. Complex subjects. Non-politicized insight is needed on where we are, and prudential judgment on possible trajectory corrections (plural).
Bishop McElroy seems too much of a “discordant” junk collector on even direct and immediate moral issues to now offer advice on future events and now how to vote. Yes, the well has been poisoned and the hour is late…but, as for both preeminence and distractions, why is there not much bishop-talk lately about the sanctified personal life and eternal salvation (or not) beyond the grave?
“PREEMINENT”? Said the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, in 1998 and in step with the (obsolesced?) St. John Paul II:
“[….] We pray that Catholics will be advocates for the weak and the marginalized in all these areas. ‘But being ‘right’ in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life. Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community’ (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 23)”.
NOW, boys and girls and those in red hats, use “preeminent” in a sentence: . . . The preeminent principle of the Catholic Social Teaching is the “transcendent dignity of the human person.”
OR maybe this: Rather than a single thread in an enlarged seamless garment (the “integral ecology”), the irreducible right to life of the most innocent and most vulnerable is the preeminent DNA of the Catholic Social Teaching.
OR, maybe with Christ: “He who is faithful in a very little [preeminent] thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much” (Luke 16:10).
That there are abortions is an undeniable fact, and thousands upon thousands of babies are being killed.
Climate change caused by man is a theory; there are many scientists who provide evidence that it is not true.
To put an actual evil on par with something that is debatable (and no, saying “the science is settled” while ignoring contrary evidence doesn’t end debate) is absurd.
A declarative sentence understood logically that is actually a declaration for Catholics to pay greater head to environment than the killing in infants in the womb. How’s that? If the audience Catholics are presumed contra abortion then the proposition is Be careful not to overemphasize one moral issue over another [overriding] suggesting vote Democrat rather than Republican. Absurd? If abortion is intrinsic evil there is no equivalent. None. The suggestion there is opens the door of conscience to the new presumed wider environmental issues promoted by Pope Francis on ecological concern for the planet. After all Nancy Pelosi declared ‘right’ to late term abortion “sacred ground”. After all Pope Francis recently payed homage to the ecological goddess Pachamama, and that priests must be ecologically converted. Bishop Robert McElroy is a progressive prelate in lock step with the new paradigmatic policy. A prime example of Pontifical dual messaging that implies truth is interrealtional mutually affirming as Dr Eduardo Echeverria so aptly demonstrated. American bishops have largely assumed the legacy of Chicago socialist Saul Alinsky Chicago Cardinal Bernadin and Chicago community organizer Barack Obama who thrice, the only person who vetoed a bill before the Illinois State legislature to provide saving care for infants who survived botched abortions. Yet our USCCB align themselves with the Democrat Party and its platform. Presbyters are intimidated by their bishops they must regardless speak out their conscience. Laity have an immensely powerful voice in all of this dark nefarious interrelatedness. Dr. Joseph Capizzi is one. Their vote their outspoken appeal to their bishops and their financial support.
Lest I’m cited by the language police corrections are: first sentence heed not head. And “implies truth is interrelational” not interrealtional.
Am I wrong to suggest
Yes, you are correct! There is very little of our Bishop’s administrations that have anything to do with the Holy Ghost! He is on his knees, tearing his way , to what he believes to be a red hat.
Abortion is an abomination, and climate change is a farce, the climate has been and will continue to change withe or without us. Not polluting is a good thing for all, and that is about it, and we don’t need to tax more, export our jobs, give away our prosperity, send money or collect money to not pollute.
Well if we got rid of trump we might be able to reverse some of the damage he has done. Your comments are naive given the science.
What is naive is failing to see the Bishop’s obvious efforts to support a party that is consistently opposed to life itself, Judaeo-Christian (and natural) morality, and freedom of religion and speech, while advocating “open borders,” socialism, and pagan sexual practices. Bishop McElroy ignores Mr. Trump’s accomplishments in returning God to the public discourse and classrooms, publicly supporting life and freedom of religion, and returning the country to the prosperity it had lost. But
he judges the President on past personal failures that have been shared by other presidents. I think a more objective view, one not harmful to the future of the Church and country,
should be taken by the USCCB in guidance to pastors and Catholic voters in all dioceses.
Well, your thinking is rooted in ideology, not science, so you are not really one to judge. “People in glass houses…”
If your Democratic “science” is gender theory, slaughter of the unborn, and trillion dollar investments to eliminate air travel and cows, build millions of windmills, and assure everyone has everything they need/want even if they decide not to work, I would much prefer the Bishops promote “ideology”, based on common sense and sound Judaeo-Christian morality. Unfortunately, they seem unlikely to do so unless enough of the laity speak up.
Exactly. My comment was a response to Eileen’s post, not yours.
When has “climate change” been a preeminent preoccupation and cause for the Catholic Church in 2,000 years? NEVER. EVER. When have “transgender issues” been a preeminent preoccupation and cause for the Catholic Church in 2,000 years? NEVER. EVER. When have abortion issues been a preeminent preoccupation and cause for the Catholic Church in 2,000 years? ALWAYS. ALWAYS. ALWAYS. Indeed, abortion was an issue fought against by all godly people in the Old Testament where, in the pagan world, abortion was a common practice, with infanticide committed by abandoning the just born in the wilderness to be eaten alive by wild beasts.
Pagans close to the ancient Jews offered live babies to be burned alive to worship the demon god Moloch. The godly fight against the monstrosity of abortion is extremely old and must continue until Jesus returns. That fight is the MOST HARDCORE faithfulness and obedience to God that gave us that very life since conception in the womb. When the most sacred ecology of the womb is desecrated and murdered, all other ecologies suffer and not the other way around. Saving animals will not save unborn babies, but saving unborn babies will save animals and all of nature. If we do not respect our most innocent self, how can we TRULY respect other non-human creatures? How? have you ever seen animals advocating for other animals’ health and safety?
Environmentalism is total hypocrisy and an excuse for despicable murder, which pays worship to all evil, all so popular tyranny and Satan, and that’s why it’s made so absolutely essential to the deceived and the deceiving or both. It’s based on J.B.I.S.S. (Just Because I Say So- demonic self-sanctification) culture, science, spirituality and sociology.
Likewise, our traitorous Catholic prelates use J.B.I.S.S Theology and Pastoral Practice. These monstrous and VERY RECENT INVENTED beliefs are nothing but the lustful dreams of a very dark demon put into practice and we must fight them and resist them with all our Faith and Life, even unto total humiliation, torture and death like our holy ancestors did and our descendants must do, for the Glory of God in our very fragile but infinitely precious, God-given lives!!
Psalm 139:14, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Environmentalism, transgenderism, etc. are nothing but VOLUNTARY SELF-HATRED that is then PROJECTED unto “political enemies” that have the audacity to love themselves in Jesus Christ’s Love since conception in the womb!
We read: “Environmentalism, transgenderism, etc. are nothing but VOLUNTARY SELF-HATRED [….]”
For purposes of argument—-and maybe even curious inquiry—-we might do as Aquinas did, and that is to notice intelligent DISTINCTIONS that matter. This is how he dealt with Muslim-distorted versions of Aristotle (human Reason) while also retaining the revealed Faith. The solidarity of ecological responsibility might not be cut from the same cloth as pseudo-religious environmental-ISM and transgenderism.
Instead, might it be that ecological responsibility is more akin, now globally, to not violating even inadvertently, the future generation’s GLOBAL AMNIOTIC SACK—our global natural systems?
Just sayin’, the Dustbowl actually happened. (And this was partly due to human soil exhaustion practices.) The potato famine actually happened. And happening today, the Sahara is enlarging and migrating south, for whatever reason. Natural systems are actually very resilient, but only within outer boundaries.
What and when are these possible inflection points? Ocean acidification, global temperature, earth cycles unrelated to human activity, etc.? So, QUESTIONS for real science (not well-understood by imperfect and even flawed computer models), and with moral implications not to be blended with any ISM or even pagan slogans (your valid point).
Like Aquinas, the clear-thinking St. John Paul II “distinguished” between the “human ecology” and the (related but different) “natural ecology” (Centesimus Annus, 1991).
But the cut-and-paste verbiage of the moment, instead, lapses too much into SMOGGY WORD INVENTIONS, like “integral ecology”—-which does make a point, but in practice gives birth to Pachamama, and to the “pluralist” specter that natural religions are equivalent to divine revelation, and to seamless-garment bishops who in their bleached verbiage refuse to distinguish or see anything as “preeminent.”
McElroy is one of McCarrick’s boys (appointed thanks to the perverted former Cardinal’s influence, without whom his meteoric rise to power would have been impossible), who rejects the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church in favour of a mushy SJW activism. His moral credibility is therefore less than zero.
The number of deaths caused by abortion has been verified to be millions worldwide; by contrast, not a single death has ever been attributed to climate change (unless you count Woke Lefties having a heart attack while going on ballistic fits of impotent rage).