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Behind the barriers at the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum Sept. 25 were hundreds of people who lost relatives and friends on 9/11. They had won tickets to see Pope Francis in a lottery, and they waved joyfully as he arrived. They watched him pray silently at a kneeler facing the pool on the site of the South Tower as the sound of rushing water filled the air.
What mattered most to them was that the pope came to the place where their loved ones perished.
Jean Colaio of Manhasset lost her brothers, Mark, 34, and Stephen, 32.
“It’s an emotionally moving place for me, and for the pope to be here at this location, and to see him in the flesh, has a powerful, almost healing effect for us,” she told CNY. “It was overwhelming when he walked through, and I couldn’t contain my emotions…I feel closer to my brothers today with him here.”
Ms. Colaio, who has three children, self-published a book, “That Day: My Story of September 11.” With her at the site was her sister-in-law, June Coppola, who was married to Mark Colaio and has since married again. Mrs. Coppola, of Harrison, also lost her brother, Thomas Pedicini, on 9/11. She said that the World Trade Center site is “sacred, holy ground,” and that seeing the pope there gave her “a complete sense of peace.”
“At the end of your life, you have your love and your kindness to other people,” she said. “That’s what he’s all about.”
Marjorie Kane of Hagerstown, Md., lost her father, Charles Mathers, who worked in the North Tower. Mrs. Kane is Episcopalian but said that she is a graduate of a Catholic high school and sends her son and daughter to a parochial school.
Referring to ground zero, she said, “This space was created by extreme intolerance, hate, anger, misunderstanding…To share this ground with a man who embodies such love and tolerance—‘powerful’ is the best word I can use. It kind of took my breath away when I saw him turn the corner, because it has always been a place filled with so much sorrow for me. It is the first time that I have been here where there was a spirit of hope in a place that usually is marred with such sadness.”
She was with her son, Charles, 13, who was named for her father. He is her first child, and she said she told her parents of her pregnancy two days before 9/11.
Eva and Joseph Reese of Kearny, N.J., were there to honor Reese’s sister, Judy Reese, who died on 9/11.
“This pope is a pope of hope, he’s a pope of the people,” Reese said. He added, “You get the feeling that this man really wants to connect with the world—and people of all faiths, not just Catholics.”
Beside the kneeler where the pope prayed was a candle bearing his coat of arms. It was there as a symbolic link to the 2008 visit to the World Trade Center of Pope Benedict XVI, who lighted a candle in the pit where a tower had stood. In keeping with current protocol, the candle was not lighted.
A group of 9/11 families had been chosen previously to meet Pope Francis, and they waited near the pool that marks the site of the South Tower. Among them was Tom Rogér, of Rochester, whose daughter, Jean, 24, a flight attendant, died aboard American Airlines Flight 11.
Rogér said that he wants to do as much as he can “so that this doesn’t ever happen again to anyone else, either this level of tragedy or lesser tragedies that are happening all over the world today.” He said he wants “to promote good values: peace, harmony, sharing, charity and all of the things that the pope really stands for.”
