WASHINGTON — Churchgoers around the United States marked the 17th
anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks with moments of silence,
special prayer services and Masses.
In Brooklyn, N.Y., a Mass for
fallen heroes was celebrated at the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph Sept. 11.
The Mass followed a procession of firefighters from across the country
who first gathered at ground zero in Lower Manhattan, where the twin
towers of the World Trade Center once stood. They marched in single file
across the Brooklyn Bridge carrying 23 ceremonial flags of the New York
City Fire Department. Each flag represented one of 23 firefighters from
Battalion 57 in Brooklyn killed in the line of duty at the trade
center.
The journey from ground zero to Brooklyn served “to symbolically bring the brothers back home,” organizers said.
Official
ceremonies took place at the sites in New York, Virginia and
Pennsylvania where four hijacked planes crashed 17 years ago, claiming
the lives of 2,996 people (including 19 hijackers).
Two planes
flew into the World Trade Center in New York, bringing down the twin
towers and killing office workers and other staff in the buildings,
emergency first responders and people fleeing in the streets.
Another
plane crashed into the Pentagon in Virginia, just outside Washington,
and a fourth airliner went down in a field near Shanksville, Pa.
President
Donald Trump spoke at anniversary ceremonies at the Flight 93 National
Memorial near Shanksville. Vice President Mike Pence addressed a crowd
at the Pentagon.
Attending a meeting of the U.S. bishops’
Administrative Committee Sept. 11 in Washington, New York Cardinal
Timothy M. Dolan said he and his brother bishops remembered the people
who perished and their families at a Mass at the U.S. bishops’
conference headquarters.
He wrote in a statement a week earlier
about historic St. Peter’s Church in downtown New York, which had
“served as a sanctuary, first-aid station, hospice, relief center and
even a mortuary” on 9/11 and for many days afterward.
At a Mass
this year at St. Peter’s, Cardinal Dolan stated the congregation
“prayerfully remembered with sorrow, reverence and love those who had
perished that unforgettable day, and their families who still grieve,
along with those who have since lost their lives due to illnesses
contracted during the rescue and recovery efforts that followed.”
Cardinal
Dolan recalled his first 9/11 anniversary observance nine years ago as
recently installed archbishop of New York, also held at St. Peter’s.
“Never
will I forget the wise comment of the pastor at the time, Father Kevin
Madigan,” Cardinal Dolan said. The priest told him: “9/11 was Good
Friday again here in New York; but the story we need to remember is
actually 9/12, a real Easter, as this community rose in rescue, relief,
support, rallying and rebuilding.”
In 2015, Pope Francis visited the site of the 9/11 attacks in Lower Manhattan, where grief remained “palpable,” he said.