"OUR NATION’S DARKEST DAY WAS THEIR FINEST

Leader of Knights of Columbus Praises Rescue Workers

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut, (Zenit.org).- On America´s National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, gave this address at the conclusion of a Mass offered Friday at St. Mary’s Church. With 1.6 million members, the Knights represent the world’s largest Catholic family fraternal service organization.

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President George W. Bush has proclaimed today a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance. In that spirit we have joined with our fellow citizens throughout the country to pray and reflect on our national tragedy.

We have prayed for those who have suffered great and disastrous loss. We have prayed for those who still await word of the fate of their loved ones. We have prayed for justice and for peace.

And now we resolve to stand together today and in the days ahead.

Unity, charity, fraternity and patriotism. These are the founding principles of the Knights of Columbus. They are the principles by which our founder, Father Michael J. McGivney, called together the first members of our organization in the basement of this church in 1881.

These principles guide us today as Knights and as citizens.

We are honored today by the attendance of His Honor the Mayor and of New Haven’s finest and bravest. We thank them for their efforts.

And, through them, we thank their colleagues -- the rescuers in New York and Washington.

They continue to bear eloquent witness to the truth that brings us together today -- that good will triumph over evil.

“The Knights of Columbus has long felt a special bond with our police and firefighters: James T. Mullen, our first supreme knight, was New Haven’s fire commissioner during the 1880s -- even while he served as supreme knight.

Another of my predecessors, John W. McDevitt, served as a police commissioner in New Haven in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

This tradition continues. Just weeks ago I signed the charter of a newly instituted council -- 12911, St. Florian, Patron Saint of Firefighters and Paramedics -- comprised entirely of Chicago firemen. Yesterday, on behalf of our 1.6 million members worldwide, I was honored to announce the creation of a $1 million ‘Knights of Columbus Heroes Fund’ for the families of law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency medical personnel who lost their lives this week or may yet lose their lives in the days ahead at the World Trade Center.

We cannot but be awed by the knowledge that so many brave men and women gave their lives that others might live. Truly, our nation’s darkest day was their finest hour.

Forty years ago, an American president -- himself to be the victim of a cowardly act of terror -- told the nation that we must bear the burden of a long twilight struggle for freedom.

Now we know that the twilight extends farther than we had come to believe.

Today is called a day of remembrance. We will never forget what we have seen this week. From this memory will come a new resolve. And from this resolve will come a new victory of good over evil.

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