Remembering the FDNY chaplain who raced to the twin towers on 9/11 to pray
Mychal Judge’s body became an enduring symbol of 9/11 as firefighters remember the chaplain who stayed to pray and give last rites.
- Today marks 25 years since the 9/11 attacks, when New York City Fire Department Chaplain Mychal Judge died ministering to first responders inside the Twin Towers.
- Judge served as an FDNY chaplain since 1992, balancing his ministry to firefighters with his life as a gay man and tireless advocate for HIV and AIDS patients in New York City.
- Designated Victim 0001, Judge died in the North Tower, where Reuters photographer Shannon Stapleton captured an iconic image of his body likened to Michelangelo's 'Pietà'.
- Although supporters have campaigned for his sainthood since 2021, the Roman Catholic Church has not opened a formal cause, citing extensive research and evidence requirements for canonization.
- Memorials spanning a peace garden in Keshcarrigan to a Manhattan street bearing his name honor Judge, whose legacy continues to challenge the Catholic Church's understanding of holiness and identity.
12 Articles
12 Articles
Victim 0001: A chaplain's last walk into the fire
In the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, Jesus remarks that a good shepherd will leave 99 sheep to go looking for one that is lost. FDNY chaplain Father Mychal Judge spent most of his life living out some version of that — with alcoholics, AIDS patients, and firefighters on their worst nights. On the morning of September 11, 2001, at 68 years old, Fr. Mychal did it one last time. He left his friary and walked straight toward the fire that everyone el…
Victim 0001: Friends recall Father Mychal Judge’s 9/11 loss and legacy
(OSV News) — The offering placed before the altar on Sept. 11, 2001, was unlike any ever seen at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Manhattan’s Financial District: the lifeless body of 68-year-old Franciscan friar and New York City Fire Department Chaplain Father Mychal Judge. He was killed when the 110 stories of the World Trade Center’s south tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m., blasting debris into the adjacent north tower lobby where Father Judge was s…
The first recorded victim of 9/11 was a gay Catholic priest
Twenty-five years after Father Mychal Judge died inside the World Trade Center, the life behind one of the day’s defining images still challenges the Catholic Church’s ideas about who may be holy.In the photograph, almost everything is gray.Five men, their faces and clothing coated in ash, carry the body of the Rev. Mychal Judge through the ruins of the World Trade Center. His head falls to one side. His black clerical clothes and white Roman co…
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