The tragic events in Berkeley should cause people to search within themselves for the “goodness and integrity” that was inherent in the six students who died, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said.
Olivia Burke (21), Ashley Donohoe (22), Eoghan Culligan (21), Niccolai (Nick) Schuster (21), Lorcán Miller (21) and Eimear Walsh (21) were killed on Tuesday when an apartment balcony collapsed.
Seven other students were seriously injured in the incident at the Library Gardens student accommodation block at 2020 Kittredge Street in Berkeley. They remain in hospital in California.
Delivering the homily of a mass in Dublin’s Pro Cathedral dedicated to the students, he said the incident struck the 13 young people at a “beautiful time in their lives”.
“Every parent could identify what happened as their own worst nightmare. We all reflected on how horrible it was that such a tragedy could have struck young people just at that unique moment of finding themselves and finding new autonomy,” he said during the Saturday evening service.
“People from all walks of life… spoke of these young people in terms of their talents and giftedness, of their joyful spirit, of their personal hopes for their own future and what they represented for our future as a nation and as a society.
“The Berkeley tragedy means that our future has been robbed of the unique goodness which was the mark of six young Irish men and women. This tragedy should renew within ourselves - all of us - that search for integrity and idealism and goodness that they will always represent.”
The joint funeral of cousins Olivia Burke and Ashley Donohoe takes place this evening in St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Cotati near Ms Donohoe’s home in Rohnert Park in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco.
The bodies of the other students will be flown to Ireland tonight, arriving in Dublin on Sunday morning.
People visited the Pro Cathedral throughout the day to sign a book of condolence for the victims.
The Archbishop of Dublin impressed the need for prayer at such a difficult time, saying that the suffering caused by such an “inexplicable” occurrence has awakened an innate sense within many people to turn to God for solace.
“There are moments in which prayer becomes an almost a natural human response in the face of the inexplicable.
“In the face of the inexplicable we move towards understanding best in silence and in contemplation. In bringing condolence to the bereaved, our hollow words say little compared with a silent embrace.”
He also spoke of how the young men and women were “the products of what is best in Irish families; that desire of parents to see their children flourish and be free and be generous and be the sort of person that would make them proud.
“That the dream of six families could turn so rapidly into what is the nightmare of all families brought tears to all our eyes and a realisation of what family is about.”