There are many iconic photographs from 9/11 including the photo of firefighters carrying away an unconscious, possibly dead, fire department chaplain. Saint of 9/11 is a documentary that acts as a memorial of that chaplain, Father Mychal Judge.
If I have one complaint about Saint of 9/11 is that the narrative is not linear, but thematic, which means that it is not told in a chronological order. Saint of 9/11 probably made this decision deliberately to garner the audience’s trust before revealing aspects of Father Judge’s life that some party line Catholics may find shocking and incompatible with his faith.
Saint of 9/11 paints a portrait of a born New Yorker whose second home was his family’s ancestral home of Ireland. The absence of a father possibly energized him to take the vow. Father Judge helped reconcile the IRA with the Irish government, ministered to people with AIDS when they were the equivalent of lepers and served the homeless regardless of whether or not they were drug addicts. His compassion knew no limits because of his struggle with alcohol and his identity as a homosexual man. Saint of 9/11 suggests that the best saints are the ones that don’t necessarily meet the church’s idea of the best candidates.
Saint of 9/11 depicts a man who died doing what he loved, helping those in distress regardless of the circumstances or the person’s characteristics. While Saint of 9/11 did not answer all my questions, if you are interested in the man or how ordinary people can make an extraordinary difference, check out Saint of 9/11.