Mychal Judge

Mychal F. Judge lettering on the south memorial fountain of the National September 11 Memorial

Mychal F. Judge OFM (born May 11, 1933 in Brooklyn , New York City as Robert Emmett Judge , † September 11, 2001 in New York City) was an American Franciscan , Roman Catholic priest and chaplain of the New York City Fire Department . He was the first documented victim of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks .

Life

Youth and entry into the Franciscan order

Mychal F. Judge was the son of Michael Judge and Mary Judge (nee Fallon). His parents, who were from County Leitrim , had emigrated from Ireland in the 1920s and met on the ship that took them to New York City . Judge was born in Brooklyn on May 11, 1933. On June 4th he was baptized in St. Paul's Church . He had two siblings, his older sister Erin and his twin sister Dympna.

When Judge was six years old, his father died in 1939 after a long illness. He then took on several odd jobs in Manhattan, including working as a shoe shine to help his family make ends meet. In 1948, after meeting priests of the Franciscan Order, he decided to become a priest himself, and now attended St. Joseph's Seraphic Seminary in Callicoon , New York . He secretly began to drink while he was a seminarian. On August 12, 1954, he entered the Franciscan Order and went to St. Bonaventure Monastery in Paterson , New Jersey . He took the order name "Fallon Michael", a combination of the names of his parents. (Judge later changed his religious name to "Michael Fallon".) In 1955 he took his first religious vows and studied at St. Francis College and Holy Name College . He received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) from St. Bonaventure University . He made his solemn profession on August 20, 1958 .

Pastoral work

On 25 February 1961 he was in the Franciscan Mt. St. Sepulcher in Washington, DC for ordained priests . As a priest, he held various pastoral positions, including at St. Anthony's Shrine in Boston (1961–1962), at St. Joseph's Church in East Rutherford , New Jersey (1962–1966), and at the Sacred Heart Church in Rochelle Park , New Jersey (1967-1969). From 1970 to 1976 Judge was again employed at St. Joseph's Church in East Rutherford. In 1976 he was appointed Assistant to the President of Siena College in Loudonville .

On June 15, 1978, Judge first attended a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous , which became an important part of his life afterwards. In 1979 Judge became pastor of St. Joseph's Church in West Milford , New Jersey. He held this office until 1985.

In 1986 he became an associate pastor at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Manhattan. Among other things, he helped organize the St. Francis AIDS Ministry and took care of HIV / AIDS sufferers. During his time in this congregation, he changed his religious name to Mychal to distinguish himself from other brothers in the congregation who were also called Michael.

After the death of the Franciscan Fr. Julian Deeken, Judge became an interim chaplain in the New York Fire Department in 1992 . In July 1993 he was part of an interfaith delegation to Israel led by then New York City Mayor David Dinkins . In 1994, Judge joined the New York Fire Department. He was responsible for Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island . When Trans-World Airlines Flight 800 crashed shortly after take-off on July 17, 1996, Judge was among the clergy who gave pastoral care to the bereaved. He received Irish citizenship in 2000. Judge had visited Ireland several times in previous years and campaigned there for the peace process.

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001

After the first plane hit the World Trade Center, chaplain Mychal F. Judge rushed to the scene with the fire brigade. After giving the Anointing of the Sick to some seriously injured people in front of the World Trade Center, he entered the lobby of the north tower and prayed for the injured and the dead. This was captured by Jules and Gédéon Naudet , among others, in their documentary September 11th - The Last Hours in the World Trade Center .

When the south tower collapsed, debris and ashes were thrown through the lobby of the north tower, killing some people, including Mychal F. Judge. After his body was found, two firefighters, a police officer , an officer from the New York City Office of Emergency Management, and a man in plain clothes carried him to St. Peter's Church , located near the World Trade Center. The picture taken by Reuters photographer Shannon Stapleton of the dead judge being carried by five men became a popular subject. It inspired the Irish glass artist Sean Egan to create a glass sculpture and was used in a modified form - Judge is carried by four stylized firefighters - by the Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz as a template for his bronze sculpture "First From the Fire". The latter exists in different sizes and can be found in its life-size version in several memorials.

From St. Peter's Church , where Kaplan Judge had been placed near the altar , Judge was later brought by an ambulance to the Engine 1-Ladder 24 fire station opposite the Franciscan monastery where he had lived since 1986. The number 00001 was noted on his death certificate in connection with the 9/11 deaths, which officially made Judge the official first victim of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Aftermath and appreciation

On September 15, 2001, the 23rd anniversary of Judges abstinence from alcohol, his funeral mass was celebrated in the upper church of St. Francis of Assisi Church . The main celebrant was the then Archbishop of New York , Edward Cardinal Egan . More than 2,800 people attended the fair, including New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani , Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, Governor George Pataki , former President Bill Clinton and his wife Senator Hillary Clinton . Judge was buried in Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Totowa , New Jersey. Due to the great interest of the population, the mass could be followed on monitors set up in front of the church and was broadcast on television.

Judge's fire helmet was later brought to Pope John Paul II and blessed by him. French President Jacques Chirac posthumously accepted Judge into the Legion of Honor . He is also one of the 442 winners of the 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor , founded by the US federal government in 2005 . On July 27, 2002, the Orthodox Catholic Church of America , an independent church that is not canonically recognized by the other Orthodox churches , declared him a saint. He is also venerated as a saint by the North American Old Catholic Church . The New York Celtic rock band Black 47 dedicated the song Mychal to Judge on their CD New York Town in 2004 . In 2006, Saint of 9/11 , a documentary about Judge, was released.

Furthermore, there were several names in his memory. A New York ferry was named "Father Mychal Judge". In Manhattan, a street was called Father Mychal F. Judge Street. The Mychal Judge Scholarship for children of firefighters killed on 9/11 was established by Siena College and the Mychal Judge Fund was established to provide financial support to victims of September 11th and their families.

Starting from St. Peter's Church , the Father Mychal Judge Walk of Remembrance takes place annually, which follows Judges path to the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Also worth mentioning is the Mychal Judge Police and Fire Chaplains Public Safety Officers' Benefit Act , a law enacted in 2002 that regulates financial benefits for the survivors of deceased public safety employees (e.g. firefighters). Before the law was passed, only children, spouses and parents of those deceased were considered. This has now been extended to all beneficiaries of the deceased.

Sexual Orientation Controversy

Shortly after Judge's death, the first reports of his homosexuality emerged . As a result, Judge's sexual orientation became controversial in public. Critics criticized the alleged instrumentalization by LGBT activists. Judge himself had spoken to very few people, including Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, about his orientation and treated it more as a private matter. He lived celibacy according to his vows . He was a member of the organization DignityUSA , which works for the acceptance and justice of bi- / homosexual people in society and especially within the Roman Catholic Church.

literature

• Michael Ford: Father Mychal Judge: an authentic American hero (2002)
• Kelly Ann Lynch: He Said Yes: The Story of Father Mychal Judge (2007)
• Michael Daly: The Book of Mychal: The Surprising Life and Heroic Death of Father Mychal Judge (2009)
• Salvatore Sapienza: Mychal's Prayer: Praying with Father Mychal Judge (2011)

Web links

Commons : Mychal Judge  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Obituary on the St. Francis of Assisi Church website
• Obituary (PDF; 108 kB) on the St. Bonaventure University website
• The Firemen's Friar
• Official website of the documentary Saint of 9/11

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Brief biography of Mychal F. Judge
2. ^ New York Daily News
3. ↑ Shannon Stapleton Photo of the dead Mychal F. Judge being carried by 5 men.
4. ↑ Sean Egan's website ( memento of the original from September 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ Tim Schmalz's website ( memento of the original from September 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Judge Awarded Medal of Valor ( Memento of the original from February 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ Entry ( Memento of the original from November 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the Orthodox Catholic Church of America 
8. ↑ Internet page ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the Saint Mychal Judge Old Catholic Church in Dallas 
9. ↑ Article about New York Town on www.allmusic.com
10. ↑ FDNY Chaplain Honored At Annual Remembrance Walk ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , September 9, 2006 
11. ↑ Father Mychal Judge Bill is Now Law! , June 23, 2002, Congressman Jerrold Nadler's website
12. ^ Gay Catholic Icon Rev. Mychal Judge
13. ↑ Syracuse.com - A monumental quest at a parish sculpted by compassion
14. ↑ Article in the New York Times (Eng.)

Remarks

1. ↑ There are different details about the exact time of this change. While Michael Ford speaks of "after the Second Vatican Council " in his biography Father Mychal Judge: an authentic American hero , Michael Daly assumes the year 1955 in the biography The Book of Mychal .