Newark chaplain, police pay tribute to lost 9/11 colleagues
After an eery drive through an empty Holland Tunnel on the morning of Sept. 12, 2001, Father John McCrone turned into Lower Manhattan and saw something he will never forget: the Twin Towers weren’t there anymore.
Father John is a priest with the Archdiocese of Newark. And as the state chaplain for the Police Benevolent Association for 27 years and a long-time Newark resident, he’s seen some things. Still, the devastation caused by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was different.
In the hours after the two World Trade Center towers collapsed, Father John spent the night at the Path Station in Jersey City ministering to Port Authority Police Department officers stationed there. On that day, 37 of those officers died in the line of duty. Another officer would die years later due to a 9/11-related illness.
Every year since, Father John meets up with Port Authority Police Officers, officials, and family members to remember.
“Remembering the dead and mourning their loss is one of the hardest parts of humanity because death is something that we have so little control over,” Father John said during a reflection today at this year’s 9/11 remembrance ceremony at Newark Liberty International Airport. “How many of those who were lost that day would give one more second to tell their wives or their husbands that they loved them, to call a friend just to say hello, to hold a brother or sister just one more time. Death teaches the living the value of living, the value of time and the value of the nature of life.”
Following Father John’s message and remarks by other officials, family members and officers laid wreaths at a new 9/11 monument installed outside Terminal 1. The police honor guard and pipe and drum band performed Amazing Grace, and there was a moment of silence for those who died 20 years ago in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Featured image: Father John McCrone — a priest with the Archdiocese of Newark and the state chaplain for the Police Benevolent Association for 27 years — gave a reflection on Sept. 10, 2021, at a 9/11 remembrance ceremony at Newark Liberty International Airport. (Jai Agnish/Archdiocese of Newark)
