Knights of Columbus highlights acts of heroism and support of families in wake of 9/11
Recent articles from the Order highlighted care for grieving families post-9/11 and the courage of New Jersey Knight Chuck Costello, who ran in the direction of the devastation and gave his life to help people escape.
As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 comes this week, the Knights of Columbus is remembering its members who were killed in the attacks and the ways the Order has since worked to support families affected by loss or long-term health effects.
According to a Sept. 1 article published by the Knights’ Columbia Magazine, 46 members of the Knights of Columbus were among those killed in the Sept. 11, 2011 attacks. Of these members, 12 were firefighters, and six were law enforcement officers.
Charles “Chuck” Costello Jr., however, was an elevator mechanic.
A husband, father, and Knight who lived in New Jersey, 46-year-old Costello was preparing to repair an elevator at a hotel 20 blocks north of the World Trade Center on the morning of the attacks. In the immediate wake of the plane crashes, thousands of people, searching for safety, ran from the towers. Costello, upon learning of the tragedy, ran toward them.
His story of heroic sacrifice was spotlighted in a separate Sept. 1 article in Columbia Magazine, which reported that he went into the north tower first, around 9 a.m. Firefighters and police officers witnessed Costello helping people evacuate, and eventually he went into the south tower. He died helping people escape, and his body was only recovered months later, found next to a firefighter and police officer in the south tower’s elevator shaft.
Hundreds of people, many of whom Costello had helped in various ways throughout his life, attended his funeral Mass celebrated Sept. 29. Joseph Langlois, then-treasurer of St. Ambrose Council 6424, told Columbia Magazine that the Knights who planned to honor Costello with the Fourth Degree honor guard had to wait outside, pivoting to hold the ceremony outdoors after the Mass.
“We absolutely could not get into the church. It was wall-to-wall packed with people,” Langlois said.
According to Costello’s childhood friend Kevin Wyer, the funeral revealed much about how Costello had lived his life: in quiet, caring service of others.
“We found out there were so many people he was helping after he passed,” Wyer said, according to Columbia Magazine. “They came forward or called [his wife] Mary and said, ‘I just want to tell you how good your husband is.’ He didn’t brag about nothing. He just did it. He did what was right, and he never mentioned nothing.”
Costello served in the U.S. Navy for four years, serving in Pearl Harbor, Japan, and the Philippines. Wyer, also a Navy veteran, told the outlet that Costello once chose to spend time during his 30-day leave period volunteering to rebuild a children’s hospital in the Philippines that had been destroyed in a hurricane. After retiring from the Navy, Costello was especially involved in his local church, helping with music, teaching Confirmation classes, and serving as an extraordinary minister of Communion.
Costello’s wife Mary told Columbia Magazine that his Catholic faith was central in his life.
“I can remember watching him at church in those early days,” Mary said, recalling when they were first dating. “He was in another zone when he was sitting there praying. You could tell he wasn’t just waiting for Mass to end. He was deep in thought and deep in prayer.”
According to the outlet, weeks after 9/11, Mary discovered a personal prayer Costello wrote in a book he had taught confirmation classes with. The book had a fill-in section under the question, “What is your prayer for the faith journey?”
Costello had penned in: “Help me to light the way for those in the dark. And when I enter the darkness, let me not panic but patiently wait to remember the light.”
'So many sacrificed so much'
Costello was among many heroic people who gave their lives to rescue others in the attacks. In the wake of the tragedy, the Knights of Columbus worked to support families of first responders, according to the other Sept. 1 Columbia Magazine article. On Sept. 12, 2001, the Order created the $1 million Heroes Fund, which helped cover immediate expenses for 419 affected families in the days of grief that followed.
Members of the Order would deliver Heroes Fund checks in person. Knight Joseph Pollaci recalled the solidarity expressed by the Order as it strove to support those in mourning. He had delivered a check to Cindy Rodriguez, whose husband Richard, a police officer, had died at the World Trade Center after rescuing several people.
“It was not something you took lightly. You knew you were entering people’s homes at perhaps the saddest time of their lives,” he told Columbia Magazine. “But we were proud of the fact that we as Knights had done something like that, to give some form of help in a time of great need.”
New York firefighter Ken Haskell was a Knight who lost his brothers Timothy and Thomas, who were also firefighters, on the day of the attack. His brothers were in the towers when they collapsed, and Haskell himself was at ground zero working on rescue and recovery efforts immediately after the attack.
Haskell told Columbia Magazine that looking back on the day, “Twenty-five years may seem like a long time, but for those who went through it, the time doesn’t matter. One year, five years, 25 years — you still feel it just the same. I miss my brothers every day.”
The Order has also since provided Catholic college tuition assistance for children of Knights of Columbus first responders who were killed or declared permanently disabled from their rescue efforts. According to the outlet, Haskell and his sister Dawn Haskell-Carbone have worked to honor their brothers, and three people from their hometown who died in the tragedy, through the Seaford 9/11 Memorial Committee. The group sponsors educational events and gives scholarships to students at the local public high school, according to the outlet.
“Everything we do is for the memory of our brothers and the other Seaford High School alumni who died,” Dawn told Columbia Magazine. “We bring the whole senior class [each year] to the 9/11 Memorial at ground zero so they will learn about what happened that day and how so many sacrificed so much.”
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