I've been hunting about for signs of Judge pre-2001. But how popular are fire chaplains in the news? Should we expect to find reference to one based in NY for 7 years or more?
Chris Keenan, the religious medium drafted in apparently to fill the boozy gay Irishman's cloth, gets a good mentioning online. See if you can spot him here, on his way round the seventh annual walk in memory of Rev MFJ himself.
Sometimes fire Chaplains hit the news winning awards. In 1998, Los Angeles chaplain Christian Van Liefde received the coveted Service to Mankind award. His prize saw him ‘praised at a luncheon at Elysian Park by members of the organization Sertoma, a nonprofit group dedicated to helping disadvantaged youths.’
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/21/local/me-51990
Sometimes they crop up for other reasons. Liefde’s dedication to youths came into question in 2002 when he was rounded up in a paedophile purge in LA’s Catholic community. He fled. Last seen priesting it up in Peru.
Source:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/ne ... xAbuse.htm
(There are twenty three similarly grainy b/w pics of ‘priests in question’ on the bishop-accountability site. Perhaps the quality was an attempt to shield the ids, or to make the characters look seedy or dangerous, but I doubt it was to hide signs of image manipulation).
Another award winner is Boston Fire Department's Chief Chaplain Father Daniel J. Mahoney, who hit the net in 2007 when he picked up the prestigious Mychal Judge Award from the Massachusetts Corps of Fire Chaplains. (News courtesy of US Fed News Service). Judge himself seems never to have won anything, though by ALL accounts his generosity and kindness were Teresian; he once gave his last dime to a beggar and formed himself into a bivouac to shelter the man and nine friends through the winter.
Chaplains also get a mention in death. Richard Holst, 60, a 31-year member of the Huntington Manor Fire Department and head of the state's fire chaplain association, died in September 2009 after collapsing at a caf? fire where he was helping victims.
A pleasingly believable shot, right?
But MFJ hit the big time in death; it's predeath that is of concern
Chaplains might make print when they perform last rites. Fortune.com lists 25 FDNY fatalities between 1994 and 2000. I’ve had time to look at only five. Judge’s name hasn’t arisen yet. Only one religious personage has been mentioned, in connection with a service held ten years after a triple tragedy. It’s a pertinent case. Christopher Bopp, James Bohan and Joseph Cavalieri were killed on Dec 18, 1998, fighting a blaze in a high-rise in Brooklyn.
Christopher Bopp

James Bohan.

Joseph Cavalieri

(Bit simmy, do you think? Where else does that frame motif appear?)
Any article will tell you six other firemen were injured at the time, but no names are mentioned. Only the post 2001 world will illuminate that Timothy Stackpole was among them. This from the dodgy CNN files.
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/me ... /1887.html
Leg.com overflows with Stackpole tributary:
http://www.legacy.com/gb2/guestbookentr ... okId=95998
Seems Stacks might well have been slipped in through a hole in history.
Meanwhile I'm still open to finding anything published by or about Father Ted between May 1933 and Sept 10th 2001. No rush.