The first official recorded casualty of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center was a Catholic priest who rushed to the Twin Towers with firefighters and was killed by falling debris.
Father Mychal Judge, a Franciscan chaplain to the New York Fire Department , rushed to the scene and entered the North Tower wearing a white firefighter's helmet and a black coat. He remained in the lobby and mezzanine of the tower, praying for the victims who were killed when commercial jetliners crashed into the Twin Towers and for firefighters who rushed past him as they responded to the emergency.
But when the nearby South Tower collapsed, the 68-year-old priest was killed by the debris that burst into the North Tower body. While he wasn't the first person to be killed on the day of the
attacks 23 years ago , his name was listed at the top of the list of deceased by the New York City Medical Examiner.
An image of the priest's lifeless body being carried from the rubble by emergency workers is still impressed in people's memory and has been compared to Michelangelo's "Pietà", a marble sculpture of Jesus and the Virgin Mary which is now located in Saint Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. The priests body was then placed before the altar of St. Peter's Catholic Church before being transported by ambulance to the fire station opposite the Franciscan Friary and later moved to the medical examiner.
The day before he died, Father Mychal had said Mass in a New York Fire Station and told firefighters that their job was dangerous and unpredictable. He said: "You have no idea when you get out on that rig, no matter how big the job or how small, you have no idea what God is calling you to." The priest was born in South Brooklyn, New York, on May 11, 1933, and was named Robert Emmett at Birth.
In 1936, his father was hospitalized with mastoiditis and remained in the hospital for three years until he died in June 1939. His mother Mary Ann's temperament became increasingly volatile, reportedly driving away other family members and making home life difficult for her children.
Emmett was educated at the local Catholic parish school, St Paul's, and served as an altar boy since a young age. He also enjoyed travelling into Manhattan with friends to earn money shining shoes and walk around the streets of NYC.
After grammar school, he enrolled at St Francis Preparatory School before joining the Franciscan seminary in upstate New York. When he was 15, he left home for St Joseph's Seraphic Seminary, outside of Callicoon, a town in Sullivan County.
Decades before 9/11, Father Mychal earned a reputation as a highly influential priest on the suburban streets of northern New Jersey. Rev. Christopher Keenan, who grew up in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, and was recruited by the priest into the Franciscans while he worked at a truck warehouse, described him as "a very striking, handsome guy - effervescent, welcoming and warm."
He added: "He had these gigantic hands. He was forever giving you a blessing." Rev. Kevin Mullen, who first met Judge in East Rutherford, New Jersey, described Father Muchal as "a very regular human being" and "a person you loved to laugh with and cry with."
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He was also known for his ground-breaking ministry to AIDS patients as when the disease swept through NYC's gay community in the late 1980s, the priest was asked to visit a gay man near death - and instead of talking to him, he reportedly reached under the hospital blankets, rubbing the man's feet. Since then, the priest became a regular at many hospitals to show he wasn't afraid to touch AIDS patients and once even picked up a man who was about to die, cradling him in his arms and praying while kissing his forehead and assuring him he was heading to heaven.
Father Mychal had reportedly told some friends he was gay and celibate, but he never spoke about his sexual orientation publicly - and many priests and others who knew him said they never suspected he might be gay.
In the aftermath of the explosion of Paris-bound TWA Flight 800 in 1996, a photo of the priest standing on a Long Island beach became a symbol for the sense of loss many families felt. But former New York Daily News columnist Michael Daly, who knew the priest and book his biography in 2008, said he finally decided to reveal his sexual orientation after finding a passage in his diary in which he discussed he was gay.
Daly said: "I couldn't write about his life without mentioning that. Mychal had not decided to tell the world about that. But after talking to his sisters and reading some of his diaries, I decided he would want me to go ahead and do the book."
His legacy is still remembered over 20 years since he passed away and in 2015, a $40,000 bronze statue of him was unveiled in East Rutherford, New Jersey. When the statue was unveiled, Reverend Donald Pitches of Carlstadt First Presbyterian Church said: "This is not a time for mourning and loss but a time to recognize a life fully and well lived."
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