We often complain that our society has neglected its relationship with God.

It has.

That’s why it may have been something of a surprise to learn that five years ago when, with the nation under attack, rescue officials at the World Trade Center went out of their way to call in priests.

On the morning of Sept. 11, officers were evacuating thousands of victims, setting up triage centers for the injured, coordinating hundreds of medical and rescue workers and their supplies. But they still took the time to care for the souls of rescue workers and victims.

They knew they needed to get the sacraments there — and that meant they had to get priests. They did, in an official and methodical way.

 “I got a call from a special agent in the FBI that there was a plane that just crashed into the World Trade Center,” Father Jim Haynes told the Register. “I was then also informed that a car was waiting at the end of the street to take me immediately to the site.”

Priests like Msgr. Robert O’Connell were kept busy giving absolution to World Trade Center rescue workers. One, Father Mychal Judge, was killed giving last rites to a victim. Police officers and firemen took the time to take his body into a nearby church before continuing to evacuate buildings.

The rescue workers who died at the World Trade Center came from all faiths and all walks of life — but it was impossible to miss the fact that most of them were Catholic.

To say that they led lives centered around the sacraments, and thus around priests, sounds like hype — but you can say that about regular Catholics.

As one of them, Lt. Francis Moore, says on this week’s commentary page, they were Catholic family men who knew each other from “weddings, Christmas parties, baptisms and funerals.” Not only were most of the 400 rescue workers who died at the World Trade Center Catholic — many of them were Knights of Columbus.

They were men whose births were announced in baptism invitations and whose deaths were announced in Mass cards.

When it came time to perform a task they knew could kill them, it was natural for them to call for priests to absolve them before they went in, and to give them last rites if they were carried back out.

Priests in September 2001 were verbal punching bags and shoulders to cry on. Priests who worked at Ground Zero spent hours blessing body parts — only to return to their parishes to confront parishioners angry at God, depressed or holding out false hope. After their own troubling work, they spent whatever was left of their energy comforting the troubles of others.

But then, that’s what priests do.

At almost every important stage of a Catholic’s life, you find a priest ready to help bring supernatural life to your soul. A priest baptizes you as a newborn, incorporating you into the body of Christ. Then, as soon as you’re able recognize Christ’s real presence, the priest hears your first confession and gives Communion to you. As you fall again and again in your life, a priest is there in a confessional, waiting to lift you back up.

A priest helps you discern your call. A priest will be there to help prepare you for married life or religious life — and, once you’re ready, to join in your ordination ceremony or preside at your wedding.

Once you have a family, priests are there for your children as they go through the same cycle. When you’re sick, a priest will anoint you. When you die, he’ll bury you.

And it doesn’t end there. After you die, priests will say Mass for your soul and lead prayers for your eternal rest.

Priests will do all of this whether society respects their role or not. They’ll do it even when endless media hype treats them as if their collars made them objects of suspicion.

That’s why the heroics of 2001 tells us more about our priests than the scandal stories of 2002. In those terrible days,  Americans had a moral clarity that is harder to come by in easy times. We knew that we all will meet God one day, soon, and that saving our souls was even more important than saving our lives.

We suddenly remembered that the sacraments — the assurance of confession and the intimacy of the Eucharist — were the most important things on earth.

Thank God for the priests who make that possible.