Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Amy Goodman on the (Gay) Saint of 9/11, Father Mychal Judge



And good news to balance the bad: at Truthdig and Democracy Now, Amy Goodman profiles 9/11 victim 0001, Franciscan priest Father Mychal Judge, who was killed when the south tower collapsed as he ministered to those assisting victims of the attack.  As Goodman notes, this past Sunday, a group determined to commemorate Judge's heroic sanctity marched in Manhattan.  The group was led by former New York City police detective Steven McDonald, who was paralyzed in 1986 when a 15-year old boy he was questioning in Central Park shot him.


Fr. Judge managed to get McDonald's assailant, Shavod Jones, on the phone with McDonald and his wife after Jones had gone to prison, and effected a reconciliation between McDonald and Jones.  And following Judge's death on 9/11, Steven McDonald has led an annual march of remembrance of Mychal Judge, though McDonald is confined to a wheelchair.  McDonald credits Judge with reaffirming his faith in God after the shooting that left him paralyzed.

As Goodman's reports also note, Mychal Judge was gay.

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