Gina Marie
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
I'll never forget that picture of the firefighters carrying his body. He must have been an amazing man and priest.
Killed on 9/11, Fire Chaplain Becomes Larger Than Life
By DANIEL J. WAKIN The New York Times
TOTOWA, N.J., Sept. 20 At the Holy Sepulcher Cemetery here, people come every day to stand before his gravestone and recite the prayer he wrote. Children, a street, a ferry and a federal law have been named for him. He has worked miracles, some say.
The Rev. Mychal F. Judge, the sandal-shod fire chaplain with friends across New York, died at the World Trade Center 54 weeks ago, and has since become the center of a fervent following.
A book about his life is already out and another is in the works. The French have named him to the Legion of Honor, and Pope John Pau II has accepted the gift of his helmet.
And while five years must pass before Father Judge could be considered a candidate for sainthood, a group of admirers has established a Web site, www.saintmychal.com, to promote the cause of his canonization and collect reports of miracles.
But the story is not as simple as the glorification of a good man who died bravely. Father Judge moved in many distinct circles. In death, those circles are overlapping in surprising and sometimes contentious ways.
His fellow Franciscans who have established a Sept. 11 relief fund in his name oppose any sanctification of Father Judge, saying such pedestal-building obscures the man's humanity.
Many Roman Catholics find in him a positive, indeed shining, example of a priest at a time when the priestly image is suffering from the sexual abuse scandal in the Church. His Irish-American friends celebrate his Irishness. Firefighters across the country have embraced him as the chaplain of chaplains.
Another group has publicly sung Father Judge's praises since his death: gay rights advocates. Some have spoken openly about what they say was his homosexual orientation, and the former New York City fire commissioner, Thomas Von Essen, said that Father Judge had long ago come out to him. The subject of his sexuality has been featured prominently in the gay press.
Still, the presence of the gay issue has caused some rancor among other friends, who resent what they say are attempts by the gay rights advocates to use Father Judge to further their agenda.
"He was a man for all seasons even a season of tragedy," said Prof. James R. Kelly, a sociologist at Fordham University. For all people, he said, Father Judge's death while ministering to firefighters in the heart of horror was the perfect image of selflessness. "It gives a deep coherence to the whole tragic event," Dr. Kelly added.
Really, Father Judge's posthumous status should be no surprise. His vast circle of friends gave him an instant constituency to bear witness to his good deeds; the extraordinary nature of his death he is listed by the medical examiner's office as victim No. 1 gave him fame.
The tales of Father Judge's life are legion. He was one of the first to minister to AIDS patients in the 1980's, at a time when many of them felt abandoned by the church. He walked around with dollar bills to hand out to the homeless. At all hours of night and day, he rushed to fires, stood by the bedsides of dying firefighters, comforted widows.
Death has magnified his many "small acts of kindness and mercy," said Peter Johnson Jr., a friend who spoke at his funeral. "That's why I think you're seeing this proliferation of people who want to claim him as one of their own. We all want Mychal to be a part of us, because we all wanted to be a part of him."
Father Judge, who was 68 when he died, was born in Brooklyn to Irish immigrant parents. After serving in several New Jersey parishes, he settled in at the Franciscan friary on West 31st Street and became a New York City Fire Department chaplain and a fixture in town. Those who knew him also describe the foibles and weaknesses of a man who changed the spelling of his name to Mychal to differentiate himself from others in his Franciscan community with the same name. He was an alcoholic who stopped drinking through Alcoholics Anonymous 23 years before he died. (He put great faith in the group.)
Some suggest that he suffered from insecurity about his intellectual achievements. He had a keen sense of the limelight and a touch of vanity. In a light moment at Father Judge's funeral, the Rev. Michael Duffy said Father Judge paused to comb and spray his hair before rushing to the World Trade Center.
The manner of Father Judge's death has also become enshrined in popular lore.
Early news accounts, repeated even recently, said that debris killed Father Judge as he was administering last rites to a firefighter who had been killed by a falling body.
The story was close. Father Judge did indeed anoint the firefighter, Daniel Suhr, said the firefighter's widow, Nancy. But then he went back into the lobby of the north tower, she said witnesses told her, and was killed by falling material inside when the south tower collapsed. Witnesses and videotape recorded inside the lobby confirmed that he died there and not while giving last rites. Some firefighters speculated that he died of a heart attack, but Brian Mulheren, a retired New York City police detective who attended the autopsy, said Father Judge died of blunt trauma to the back of the head.
Mrs. Suhr said that friends suggested she correct the anointing story. "I said, `Listen, Father Judge is a priest and people need to hold onto that myth.' How wonderful does it sound that he died giving the last rites to a firefighter?"
Father Duffy repeated the story at the funeral. "He was talking to God, and he was helping someone," he said. "Can you honestly think of a better way to die?"
So it all came together the first official victim, a priest who died on a mission to comfort others, a man with an extraordinarily large circle of friends and acquaintances.
"There's an innate need for us for heroes," said Father Judge's provincial director, the Rev. John M. Felice. "The people who knew him knew what kind of character he was. But the context of his death and drama of it and the national agony we all experienced it. He was the first big funeral," Father Felice said.
And then, there is the photograph.
A Reuters photographer captured an image of rescuers carrying Father Judge from the rubble in a chair, his head slumped sideways. The pose in the widely circulated image is now invariably referred to as a modern Piet?.
At Father Judge's funeral, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani set the tone immediately. "He was a saint, a wonderful man," the mayor said.
So perhaps www.saintmychal.com was inevitable.
The Web site was founded by Burt Kearns, a television producer. Mr. Kearns said he never met Father Judge, but was inspired by his story. He said the Web site is a clearinghouse for information about Father Judge, including reports of miracles. "The man died the way he lived, as a saint, and as a person who was larger than life," Mr. Kearns said.
The site has drawn requests for relics to heal cancer patients or copies of pictures to pray to. A New York City firefighter's wife wrote in to say that her daughter, now seven, was born healthy after she was diagnosed as having water on the brain in utero thanks to the prayers of Father Judge and his touch.
Talk of sainthood is not welcome for some of those closest to Father Judge. One of his two sisters, Dympna Jessich, said she would rather not discuss the subject. "Everybody's entitled to their opinions," she said.
Father Felice said that to sanctify Father Judge was to define him too narrowly, to even do him an injustice. It would fall to his order to introduce his cause for sainthood to the Vatican , and Franciscan officials say they have no such plans. And even if there were such a move, there would be considerable hurdles and it could take decades for the matter to wend its way through the Vatican.
"A lot of what Mychal was about was admirable," Father Felice said. "I'm just a little leery of putting it into a context that shoves a person away from our human experience, and makes them less effective as models for everyday living. It's better to keep the real Mychal alive and well in your brain. I think he has a lot more to say than a Mychal with a halo over his head."
Some American Roman Catholics, wounded by this year's disclosures of the sexual abuse of minors by priests, say they feel that Father Judge has something to say to them, too, as do priests who feel tarnished by the misdeeds of others. "In the wake of the scandals that have affected the image of the priests, I think people are generally looking to rescue that, and for priests who have done remarkable things," said Msgr. Donald Sakano, pastor of Holy Innocents Church in Manhattan.
Father Judge's other natural constituency are firefighters, and his story is known in firehouses across the nation. "He has become a legend within the fire service," said George Burke, a spokesman for the International Association of Fire Fighters.
Father Judge's name is also invoked by gay rights advocates, who maintain that the priest's sexuality was an important part of his make-up as a man and a priest.
"What his life says is, `Yes you can be gay and good, you can be homosexual and holy,' " said Brendan Fay, a gay rights advocate who was a friend of the priest's.
Friends recall how Father Judge had invited the AIDS ministry of Dignity, a gay Catholic organization, to operate out of St. Francis. Mr. Fay said Father Judge marched in an alternative St. Patrick's Day parade in Queens that included gays.
Some of Father Judge's friends, however, are angry by what they see as opportunism by some gay rights advocates. These friends emphasize that any sexual orientation that he may have had is irrelevant. Some are hostile to the suggestion he was homosexual. "His death is being used by a lot of people, as well as his life," said Dennis Lynch, who attacked Mr. Fay as an opportunist in an article posted on Web sites.
"To say he was gay after he was dead, and to say he said it, that's something I can't understand," said Mr. Mulheren, the retired detective. "There are a lot of people out there who are opportunists." He includes among them Michael Ford, a BBC journalist who wrote "Father Mychal Judge: An Authentic American Hero" (Paulist Press, 2002). Mr. Ford writes extensively in the book about Father Judge as a gay man.
"We knew who he was," Mr. Mulheren said. "He was one of the finest human beings on the earth."
At the cemetery, a mound of tulips, irises, baby's breath and carnations covers Father Judge's gravestone, inscribed with his name and the dates of his birth and death. There are a few small American flags, a fire chaplain shield and a cartoon-faced porcelain doll of a friar.
The cemetery secretary, Jo Fitzpatrick, never met Father Judge, but she stops by his grave every morning on her way to work. "I just feel that he was special, what he did, and how loved he was," she said.
Killed on 9/11, Fire Chaplain Becomes Larger Than Life
By DANIEL J. WAKIN The New York Times
TOTOWA, N.J., Sept. 20 At the Holy Sepulcher Cemetery here, people come every day to stand before his gravestone and recite the prayer he wrote. Children, a street, a ferry and a federal law have been named for him. He has worked miracles, some say.
The Rev. Mychal F. Judge, the sandal-shod fire chaplain with friends across New York, died at the World Trade Center 54 weeks ago, and has since become the center of a fervent following.
A book about his life is already out and another is in the works. The French have named him to the Legion of Honor, and Pope John Pau II has accepted the gift of his helmet.
And while five years must pass before Father Judge could be considered a candidate for sainthood, a group of admirers has established a Web site, www.saintmychal.com, to promote the cause of his canonization and collect reports of miracles.
But the story is not as simple as the glorification of a good man who died bravely. Father Judge moved in many distinct circles. In death, those circles are overlapping in surprising and sometimes contentious ways.
His fellow Franciscans who have established a Sept. 11 relief fund in his name oppose any sanctification of Father Judge, saying such pedestal-building obscures the man's humanity.
Many Roman Catholics find in him a positive, indeed shining, example of a priest at a time when the priestly image is suffering from the sexual abuse scandal in the Church. His Irish-American friends celebrate his Irishness. Firefighters across the country have embraced him as the chaplain of chaplains.
Another group has publicly sung Father Judge's praises since his death: gay rights advocates. Some have spoken openly about what they say was his homosexual orientation, and the former New York City fire commissioner, Thomas Von Essen, said that Father Judge had long ago come out to him. The subject of his sexuality has been featured prominently in the gay press.
Still, the presence of the gay issue has caused some rancor among other friends, who resent what they say are attempts by the gay rights advocates to use Father Judge to further their agenda.
"He was a man for all seasons even a season of tragedy," said Prof. James R. Kelly, a sociologist at Fordham University. For all people, he said, Father Judge's death while ministering to firefighters in the heart of horror was the perfect image of selflessness. "It gives a deep coherence to the whole tragic event," Dr. Kelly added.
Really, Father Judge's posthumous status should be no surprise. His vast circle of friends gave him an instant constituency to bear witness to his good deeds; the extraordinary nature of his death he is listed by the medical examiner's office as victim No. 1 gave him fame.
The tales of Father Judge's life are legion. He was one of the first to minister to AIDS patients in the 1980's, at a time when many of them felt abandoned by the church. He walked around with dollar bills to hand out to the homeless. At all hours of night and day, he rushed to fires, stood by the bedsides of dying firefighters, comforted widows.
Death has magnified his many "small acts of kindness and mercy," said Peter Johnson Jr., a friend who spoke at his funeral. "That's why I think you're seeing this proliferation of people who want to claim him as one of their own. We all want Mychal to be a part of us, because we all wanted to be a part of him."
Father Judge, who was 68 when he died, was born in Brooklyn to Irish immigrant parents. After serving in several New Jersey parishes, he settled in at the Franciscan friary on West 31st Street and became a New York City Fire Department chaplain and a fixture in town. Those who knew him also describe the foibles and weaknesses of a man who changed the spelling of his name to Mychal to differentiate himself from others in his Franciscan community with the same name. He was an alcoholic who stopped drinking through Alcoholics Anonymous 23 years before he died. (He put great faith in the group.)
Some suggest that he suffered from insecurity about his intellectual achievements. He had a keen sense of the limelight and a touch of vanity. In a light moment at Father Judge's funeral, the Rev. Michael Duffy said Father Judge paused to comb and spray his hair before rushing to the World Trade Center.
The manner of Father Judge's death has also become enshrined in popular lore.
Early news accounts, repeated even recently, said that debris killed Father Judge as he was administering last rites to a firefighter who had been killed by a falling body.
The story was close. Father Judge did indeed anoint the firefighter, Daniel Suhr, said the firefighter's widow, Nancy. But then he went back into the lobby of the north tower, she said witnesses told her, and was killed by falling material inside when the south tower collapsed. Witnesses and videotape recorded inside the lobby confirmed that he died there and not while giving last rites. Some firefighters speculated that he died of a heart attack, but Brian Mulheren, a retired New York City police detective who attended the autopsy, said Father Judge died of blunt trauma to the back of the head.
Mrs. Suhr said that friends suggested she correct the anointing story. "I said, `Listen, Father Judge is a priest and people need to hold onto that myth.' How wonderful does it sound that he died giving the last rites to a firefighter?"
Father Duffy repeated the story at the funeral. "He was talking to God, and he was helping someone," he said. "Can you honestly think of a better way to die?"
So it all came together the first official victim, a priest who died on a mission to comfort others, a man with an extraordinarily large circle of friends and acquaintances.
"There's an innate need for us for heroes," said Father Judge's provincial director, the Rev. John M. Felice. "The people who knew him knew what kind of character he was. But the context of his death and drama of it and the national agony we all experienced it. He was the first big funeral," Father Felice said.
And then, there is the photograph.
A Reuters photographer captured an image of rescuers carrying Father Judge from the rubble in a chair, his head slumped sideways. The pose in the widely circulated image is now invariably referred to as a modern Piet?.
At Father Judge's funeral, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani set the tone immediately. "He was a saint, a wonderful man," the mayor said.
So perhaps www.saintmychal.com was inevitable.
The Web site was founded by Burt Kearns, a television producer. Mr. Kearns said he never met Father Judge, but was inspired by his story. He said the Web site is a clearinghouse for information about Father Judge, including reports of miracles. "The man died the way he lived, as a saint, and as a person who was larger than life," Mr. Kearns said.
The site has drawn requests for relics to heal cancer patients or copies of pictures to pray to. A New York City firefighter's wife wrote in to say that her daughter, now seven, was born healthy after she was diagnosed as having water on the brain in utero thanks to the prayers of Father Judge and his touch.
Talk of sainthood is not welcome for some of those closest to Father Judge. One of his two sisters, Dympna Jessich, said she would rather not discuss the subject. "Everybody's entitled to their opinions," she said.
Father Felice said that to sanctify Father Judge was to define him too narrowly, to even do him an injustice. It would fall to his order to introduce his cause for sainthood to the Vatican , and Franciscan officials say they have no such plans. And even if there were such a move, there would be considerable hurdles and it could take decades for the matter to wend its way through the Vatican.
"A lot of what Mychal was about was admirable," Father Felice said. "I'm just a little leery of putting it into a context that shoves a person away from our human experience, and makes them less effective as models for everyday living. It's better to keep the real Mychal alive and well in your brain. I think he has a lot more to say than a Mychal with a halo over his head."
Some American Roman Catholics, wounded by this year's disclosures of the sexual abuse of minors by priests, say they feel that Father Judge has something to say to them, too, as do priests who feel tarnished by the misdeeds of others. "In the wake of the scandals that have affected the image of the priests, I think people are generally looking to rescue that, and for priests who have done remarkable things," said Msgr. Donald Sakano, pastor of Holy Innocents Church in Manhattan.
Father Judge's other natural constituency are firefighters, and his story is known in firehouses across the nation. "He has become a legend within the fire service," said George Burke, a spokesman for the International Association of Fire Fighters.
Father Judge's name is also invoked by gay rights advocates, who maintain that the priest's sexuality was an important part of his make-up as a man and a priest.
"What his life says is, `Yes you can be gay and good, you can be homosexual and holy,' " said Brendan Fay, a gay rights advocate who was a friend of the priest's.
Friends recall how Father Judge had invited the AIDS ministry of Dignity, a gay Catholic organization, to operate out of St. Francis. Mr. Fay said Father Judge marched in an alternative St. Patrick's Day parade in Queens that included gays.
Some of Father Judge's friends, however, are angry by what they see as opportunism by some gay rights advocates. These friends emphasize that any sexual orientation that he may have had is irrelevant. Some are hostile to the suggestion he was homosexual. "His death is being used by a lot of people, as well as his life," said Dennis Lynch, who attacked Mr. Fay as an opportunist in an article posted on Web sites.
"To say he was gay after he was dead, and to say he said it, that's something I can't understand," said Mr. Mulheren, the retired detective. "There are a lot of people out there who are opportunists." He includes among them Michael Ford, a BBC journalist who wrote "Father Mychal Judge: An Authentic American Hero" (Paulist Press, 2002). Mr. Ford writes extensively in the book about Father Judge as a gay man.
"We knew who he was," Mr. Mulheren said. "He was one of the finest human beings on the earth."
At the cemetery, a mound of tulips, irises, baby's breath and carnations covers Father Judge's gravestone, inscribed with his name and the dates of his birth and death. There are a few small American flags, a fire chaplain shield and a cartoon-faced porcelain doll of a friar.
The cemetery secretary, Jo Fitzpatrick, never met Father Judge, but she stops by his grave every morning on her way to work. "I just feel that he was special, what he did, and how loved he was," she said.
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