“I knew hundreds were either killed or escaped from the buildings,” Fr. Rutler added, “and countless spouses and children and relatives.”
In the following weeks, he became exhausted from conducting funerals.
Fr. Gerald Murray of St. Vincent De Paul Church remembers going to the roof of his rectory in Chelsea when he saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center.
“It was quite dramatic,” he recalled, momentarily stunned by what he saw that morning 10 years ago.
His next move, however, was surprising.
Rather than follow the natural instinct to run away from danger, he grabbed his bike and rode in the direction of the inflamed towers “so that I could be of use as a priest giving last rites,” he told CNA.
As he rode his bike down 7th Ave., he came across the now-closed St. Vincent's Hospital where doctors and nurses where already out on the sidewalk with stretchers and gurneys waiting to receive the injured.
Having served as a Navy Reserve chaplain, Fr. Murray explained that he was taught that the “chaplain doesn't go to the battle line, he goes where they bring the wounded – the aid station.”
“Immediately I saw the priest at St. Vincent's and I said 'could you use some help?' and he said 'yes' so I stayed at St. Vincent's the whole morning and gave absolution to people who were being wheeled in.”
He was later joined by former archbishop of New York Cardinal Edward Egan and a diocesan priest who was the chaplain of the Port Authority police who was covered in soot from being downtown.
Fr. Murray said he remembers the sudden screams that went up from those around him at the hospital as they helplessly looked on from a distance when the Twin Towers began collapsing.
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Later in the day, “I went back to my parish to say Mass, and that was one of the most dramatic feelings,” he said. “Saying Mass knowing that we'd been hit by this evil.”
In the following months, Fr. Murray spent substantial amounts of time at Ground Zero.
“When the firemen would recover any remains there would be a priest there to bless the remains before they were brought to an ambulance to be taken to the medical examiner.”
“When I was there, in fact, they recovered the remains of a fireman so we said some prayers and accompanied the remains to the ambulance,” he recalled. “So that was very fulfilling to be able to do that.”
Both priests remember being moved at how the local community mobilized immediately after the tragedy hit.
“The city really snapped into action,” Fr. Murray said, noting that then-mayor Rudy Guliani came by that morning to St. Vincent's Hospital. He also remembered “a lot of people milling around St. Vincent's.”