Top photo caption: Bishop O’Connell holds a piece of rebar taken from the 9/11 attack site in New York City at the Diocesan Mass of Remembrance in St. Mary, Mother of God Church, Middletown. Staff photo
Marking the solemn and significant 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., lifted up the “innocent, righteous souls” lost that day.
“These are not simply statistics or numbers,” Bishop O’Connell said in his homily before a capacity crowd on the evening of the Sept. 11 anniversary in St. Mary, Mother of God Church, Middletown. “They are lives: our fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, neighbors, friends, each with a name, a family, a story, a future cut short.”
The numbers, however, were also important to recall. Bishop O’Connell noted that, of the of the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives in the Sept. 11 attacks, and the 674 from New Jersey, the parish of St. Mary, Mother of God lost 26 members, making the setting for the Diocesan Mass of Remembrance especially meaningful.
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