Mychal Judge: Where He Was
Needed
The
Rev. Mychal Judge never shut his door at the Midtown
Franciscan friary, literally or emotionally. Anybody with
the slightest need for the contents inside -- be it a
warm jacket or his attentive ear -- was welcome.
Not that Father Judge was often in. As chaplain to the
New York Fire Department, Father Judge, 68, could be
found joking or comforting firefighters or driving
hellbent to emergencies. When a boatload of Chinese
refugees were shipwrecked in the Rockaways, he was one of
the first there, "handing out blankets and coffee and
telling them jokes," said Peter Johnson, a friend. "They
didn't know English, but he was doing pantomime and they
were laughing."
He had "movie-star looks and a tremendous ability to
speak and sing," said Mr. Johnson. "And that was tempered
by his absolute consistent devotion to being a priest."
He wore his friar's robes to soup kitchens, to Gracie
Mansion, to the White House, to countless baptisms and
funerals.
He had no use -- none -- for physical things, said
Steven McDonald, the police officer paralyzed by a
gunshot who accompanied Father Judge on peace trips to
Belfast. Give the father a cashmere sweater, he said, and
it would wind up on the back of a homeless person. Go to
him with a troubled soul and he would listen intently for
as long as it took. He went where he was needed. On Sept.
11, he faced the inferno with the firefighters.
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