Victims' families find comfort at WTC ceremony

0 Comments | USA TODAY, April, 2008 | by Kevin McCoy; Charisse Jones; Venuri Siriwardane

NEW YORK -- Pope Benedict XVI's prayer at Ground Zero on Sunday elevated the site where 2,750 people lost their lives to a "real place of reverence" and brought a measure of closure to families and a city deeply scarred by the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

"He brought a lot of comfort to our family and others that their sacrifices were not in vain," said Thomas Riches, 23, a New York firefighter who was one of 24 people with connections to the attacks who met with the pope. Riches' brother, Jimmy, was a firefighter killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. "It moved this place up to a real place of reverence."

In a solemn ceremony at a site normally bustling with hundreds of workers building a 102-story skyscraper, a memorial and a transit hub,...