“9/11 for Catholics; Especially Poignant”

From the Catholic League, and this is not to denigrate the terrible losses for people of other faiths, or no faith.

The loss of nearly 3,000 innocent Americans on September 11, 2001 in New York City, western Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. is something everyone who lived through that fateful day will never forget, and this is especially true for Catholics in the New York area.

In July 2002, Catholic League staffers called the FDNY, the NYPD and the Port Authority, asking for information about the religious background of the first responders. Though they had no official data, they gave us an estimate of what they believed to be true.

The priest who was the head of Clergy Services for the fire department said that 85 percent of the Masses and memorial services were for Catholics. The priest who was the administrative chaplain for the police department told us that 20 of the 23 police officers who died at the World Trade Center were Catholic. The priest who was the spiritual director of the Port Authority Catholic unit estimated that 85-90 percent of the first responders were Catholic.

Our information was backed up by an urban affairs researcher at the City University of New York. Writing in the New York Times, he said, “the Irish and Italian American firemen and police officers who gave their lives, and the white Catholic construction workers who cleaned up the site” were the ones who “literally built New York as we know it.”

Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop of New York, was headed to Ground Zero when Rudy Giuliani, the Catholic mayor, called him and asked that he go to St. Vincent’s Hospital instead to attend to the injured. Father Mychal Judge, who lost his life at Ground Zero, gave general absolution to firemen entering one of the towers. Father Geno Sylva arrived at the scene, assisting workers collecting the remains of the victims.

Catholics were clearly moved by the 17-foot high column and cross-beamed retrieved from the World Trade Center. Officially known as “The Cross at Ground Zero,” it was branded “offensive” and “repugnant” by American Atheists; they tried to prevent the cross from being displayed.

We should never forget what Mohamed Atta, the pilot who crashed one of the two towers, said to his men that day. “When you strike, shout Allah is great because this shout strikes terror in the hearts of the infidels.” He closed by saying, “Seconds before the target, your last words should be there is no God but Allah. Muhammad is his messenger.”

This is evil personified, and those who cannot condemn what happened are just as evil.