Anniversary
of First WTC Attack Marked
Wed Feb 26,
2:35 PM ET
By RICHARD PYLE, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - A decade after the first terrorist
attack on the World Trade Center, family and
friends of the six victims gathered Wednesday
morning for a memorial Mass at a church near
ground zero.
The service inside St. Peter's Church in lower
Manhattan, which was filled with mourners, started
at 11 a.m. Wednesday — the 10th anniversary of
the day that a bomb exploded in a trade center
parking garage on Feb. 26, 1993.
A moment of silence for the six dead was observed
at 12:18 p.m., the exact moment of detonation.
Among those at the Mass were Mayor Michael
Bloomberg and Gov. George Pataki, neither of whom
addressed the gathering of 300-plus
mourners.
"The deaths of these people do not call out
for vengeance," said the Rev. Kevin Madigan,
pastor of the church, in his homily. "They
cry out that we should try to find some meaning
... find a safer world, a world more free and more
just."
In his eulogy, Madigan noted how the annual
memorial Mass has united the families of the six
1993 victims despite the difficulties of life in
this "lawless, disordered world."
The first attack on the trade center, using a van
loaded with explosives, killed a half-dozen
people, injured more than 1,000 and forced the
evacuation of 50,000 people from the twin
towers.
"We try to imagine what the world would be
like if they were still with us today,"
Madigan said of the victims. "We try to
figure out how the world has changed. ... Time is
given to us to cry, to grieve, to recollect, to
remember and to move on."
The second attack, using hijacked airplanes,
destroyed the center on Sept. 11, 2001.
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