Posted by Sarah (165.247.12.88) on September 17, 2001 at 15:43:23:
THE WORLD
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City of heroes mourns man of its heart
By Sarah Baxter, New York and staff reporters
September 17, 2001
IN a city of heroes, one of the valiant was mourned yesterday. Father Mychal Judge, chaplain of
the New York Fire Department, was remembered by thousands at the Church of St Francis Assisi,
where he was pastor.
Father Judge, 68, rushed to the World Trade Centre when he heard Tuesday's explosion and was
comforting the injured and dying when he was crushed by flying debris. He died alongside the men
he loved and ministered to, New York's bravest, the firefighters who entered the flaming towers
when everyone else was trying to flee.
He lived in a small monastery room on a sofabed, and his life and death has come to represent all
those who have made New Yorkers feel so proud and sad this past week.
He was a volunteer, like so many others. The rumour spread that he had died while administering
the last rites to Bill Feehan, the deputy fire chief, who was said to have been killed by a woman
falling from a tower. The truth may never be known, but it is somehow fitting that Father Judge
joined the more than 300 firefighters feared to have died.
Inside the church, mourners ö who included former president Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, a New
York senator ö sang Beethoven's Ode to Joy in memory of a man many knew as plain Mickey
Judge.
Hillary, who once shared a prayer breakfast at the White House with Father Judge, said he "lit up
the White House as he lit up every place where he ever found himself".
Richard Fogarty, 58, a retired fireman and member of Father Judge's church, paid tribute to the
chaplain's sense of humour, His grief was tinged with anger at the extent of last week's slaughter:
"I was in the Marine Corps. I say blow them away. Find them and kill them." In New York, Father
Judge's funeral became a tribute to the extraordinary dedication and heroism of the firefighters
facing a disaster for which no amount of training could have prepared them. As many as a million
people are expected to attend a ceremony to honour them in Central Park next Sunday.
At Washington National Cathedral, two generations of presidents and their first ladies, George W.
Bush and his father, his wife Laura and mother Barbara, bowed their heads in prayer together.
"Our unity is a kinship of grief and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our enemies," Mr Bush
said. "And this unity against terror is now extending across the world."
Grieving mixed with anger around the world, from the stricken streets of Belfast to a Buddhist
monastery in Sydney. At Perth's St George Cathedral, the Very Reverend John Shepherd spoke of
terrorists plumbing "new depths of hatred".
Today, John Howard will host a memorial service in Parliament House's Great Hall at midday, in
honour of those who died in Washington and New York.
The Sunday Times