World Youth Day Cross brought hope to Ground Zero

On Sept. 11, 2001, 48-year-old Ken Basnicki was killed on a business trip, one of the 24 Canadians who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Just five months later, in February 2002, his parents, widow and two children joined more than 100 Canadian Catholics as that year’s World Youth Day Cross was brought to the site of the attacks in an act of solidarity and hope.

Sébastien Lacroix, a member of the national team preparing for World Youth Day Toronto 2002, still remembers the morning of those attacks well. 

“ I was at the head World Youth Day office on Yonge Street. Some of us were in meetings, but we all joined together at the TV in the meeting room. Like everybody else, we were quiet, and we couldn't believe what was happening,” he recently told The Catholic Register. 

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“I also remember in the afternoon, we had Holy Mass with Fr. Tom (Rosica), which was the Mass for Peace in Time of War in the Roman Missal.” 

Lacroix, who helped to coordinate the World Youth Day Cross pilgrimage across Canada as one of the portageurs, would soon join Rosica, the national director of WYD 2002, in a trip that saw them, along with then-Toronto Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Meagher, youth from across Canada and representatives of Toronto’s police, fire and emergency medical services travel to New York on Feb. 23. 

Lacroix remembers the atmosphere of that late night when he took his seat in one of two Greyhound buses ahead of a 10-hour journey to New York City. 

“ It was dark leaving at night from St. Michael's College. We loaded into two motor coaches with the Cross all wrapped in a special trailer. The decals on the buses had the quote from Pope John Paul II that said, ‘The Cross walks with young people, and the young people walk with the Cross,’ ” he recalled. 

Arriving in New York late the next morning, Holy Mass and a special prayer vigil with the WYD Cross were held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral among nearly 600 people from New York and neighbouring dioceses in attendance. Meagher, who chaired the national bishops' committee overseeing World Youth Day 2002, was the main celebrant. 

“ It was the evening, it was dark, it was winter, but we weren't alone. It wasn’t a joyful moment, but a moment to show our solidarity, proximity and hope for the future,” Lacroix said. 

On Feb. 25, the pilgrimage came to a halt at Ground Zero, what remained of the World Trade Center. As originally reported by The Catholic Register in its March 10, 2002 issue, only a towering crane with an American flag draped on a tarp covering the shattered skyscrapers was there to greet them. 

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Each pilgrim would make their way to the top of the family viewing platform just metres above the pit. There, filling the platform, Lacroix found himself with the Basnicki family as Rosica led a liturgy around Christ’s Cross as an affirmation of the victory over sin and death, as the four-metre high WYD Cross stood nearby. 

“ There were a lot of workers with us on that platform, people with their construction helmets standing with us. There were people crying, and it was a profound, prayerful moment of deep sharing,” Lacroix said. 

“Then, there was the Cross. It was still so fresh, and I think that we would not have been able to go otherwise. It really was about that symbol with us — a very powerful symbol entrusted to our young people by Pope John Paul II that year.” 

This month, hundreds more will flock to Ground Zero on the 25th anniversary of 9/11. For Lacroix, the memory of standing there with the World Youth Day Cross, beside the Basnicki family and a small contingent of Canadian pilgrims, remains both vivid and formative. 

“You never forget those moments. They’re part of your journey spiritually as well as your reflection on humanity and on the world.” 

Remarkable to him this year and to so many on that day in February, a place that once felt devoid of any hope was uplifted by a simple wooden Cross.

Even a quarter-century later, Lacroix is clear about what that symbol continues to mean, echoing the words of Fr. Joseph Viveiros, director of liturgy for WYD 2002. 

“What an amazing act of defiance, that in the midst of all that chaos, we got to hold up the Cross,” he said on the bus home from New York. 

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“Our faith in (that) Cross and in Jesus should remain central, because there is no hope otherwise,” Lacroix said today. 

A version of this article appeared in the September 06, 2026 issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "World Youth Day Cross brought hope to Ground Zero"