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SEPTEMBER 11TH ONE YEAR LATER
A Pastoral Statement by Bishop Michael Saltarelli
 As we remember the souls of the victims of September 11th in our parishes and Catholic liturgies one year later, I would like to reflect with you on some of the spiritual lessons of that day. In these past months, we have been able to discern that even in a calamity of such magnitude, God’s grace and goodness was revealed in large and small ways, in public and private moments. From these we can take heart and we can grow in hope.
We remember the Dead in our Prayers
We recollect that last September 11, there was not one but three sites of terror and destruction: The World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and the crash of an airliner in Pennsylvania. At each location there have been remembrances of the dead as families and friends, colleagues and comrades – along with countless other Americans – have sought to pay tribute to those who died.
One of the most poignant of these was a beautiful series that ran in The New York Times, in which individual portraits were created for each person who perished at the World Trade Center. There were employees of the Windows of the World restaurant, investment bankers, security guards, office workers and of course the firefighters and police officers. The people represented every religion, ethnic background and economic level. The Times portraits captured their particular humor and personality, their hopes and dreams, their relationships with their families. This series emphasized that the victims of September 11th still matter, still count and are, mysteriously, still with us.
Roman Catholics are at home with these sentiments which are deeply rooted in our theology and spirituality. In our tradition, we believe that friendship and our connection with loved ones goes beyond the chasm of death. Those of us still on pilgrimage in this life, those saints who are at the throne of God, those who are in a state of purification called purgatory -- we are all united in a bond of love with Christ at the center.
We remember the Cross of World Trade Center beams that emerged from the debris as a symbol of hope and resurrection in the midst of evil and tragedy. Our prayer for the dead connects us with the Cross of Christ and mysteriously gives us strength in carrying the Cross of our grief and trials as we stand in solidarity with those who suffered that day and with their loved ones who suffer still.
We understand more deeply the Biblical Spirituality of the Fragility of Life
The video footage of the Towers collapsing, the grainy photographs of people standing on the ledges of the upper floors of the World Trade Center in their last moments, the recorded and written transcripts of final cell phone conversations between family members served to remind us of a prominent theme of biblical spirituality that can be traced throughout the Old and New Testaments -- the fragility of human life. How eloquently, for instance, do the psalms remind us that generations come and go in a flash and that we need to keep our hearts vigilant and grounded in the love of God in the present moment.
But this deepened sense of the fragility of human life that terrorist attacks thrust upon us should not make us cower or uncertain about how to live. It is an incentive for us to reassess the direction of our lives. It is an invitation to become more humble and cooperative instruments in the hands of Jesus Christ.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, invited people in his Spiritual Exercises to meditate on the scene of their own death bed. Death is a reality of life. When we meditate on what our Catholic Tradition calls "the Last Things" -- Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell -- we are in touch with the desire for holiness and virtue, the desire to be a saint that is within each one of us. We are able to separate the essential from the non-essential in life. We understand that life is fragile, but the gift that awaits us is eternal life.
We learn from the Parables of September 11th
The Gospel parables continue to move us after two millennia because in their hearing we experience the Kingdom of God. There are numerous “parables” that have emerged from the events of September 11. Firefighters rush to the upper floors of the World Trade Center to lay down their lives for complete strangers. A young husband and father bids goodbye to his wife on a cell phone and says “Let’s roll!” as he leads a selfless struggle on the already doomed jet to prevent even greater loss of life. With the elevators shut down, an able-bodied office worker stays with a wheel-chair-bound friend rather than escape down the stairs – sacrificing his life so his friend would not die alone. A dead priest is laid out in front of the altar of sacrifice by firefighters who instinctively understand the connection between priesthood and the Eucharist in the oldest Catholic Church in New York.
These parables of heroism and sacrifice are a modern commentary on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a Gospel which is ever new. These parables inspire us to be generous, to go the extra mile, and to appreciate the treasure of our families. We should continue to tell the stories of September 11 to one another and to our children. We recognize that while the Gospel is the written Word of God, it is also the testimony of the lives of saints among us such as those who struggled, who died, and who helped to save one another that day.
We Sanctify our Work
What were people doing in the morning hours of September 11th at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center? People were going about the business of their daily work lives when their lives were turned upside down. Secretaries were at their desks making phone calls and scheduling appointments. Early morning meetings were winding down. Trades were being made and contracts signed. A young man who grew up in our Diocese was working as a naval weatherman at the Pentagon; another man from our Diocese was working as a flight attendant on a flight from Newark Airport.
One of the ways we honor the memory of the victims of September 11th is to dedicate our work to Christ and to sanctify our everyday work in many small and practical ways.
We can endeavor to build constructive human relationships in the workplace. We can resolve to counter cynicism. We can uphold the dignity of all and oppose injustice in the workplace. We can reflect in prayer about how better to integrate our work and family obligations.1
We Strive to be more intensively "Catholic" in a World of Globalization
"Globalization" refers to the modern reality that because of a variety of technological and economic advances, there is a more intimate interaction between countries and continents, governments and economies.
September 11th brought this reality home in a new and powerful way. Suddenly, there was a need to understand the culture and history of a country like Afghanistan. There was a need to understand and distinguish between various forms and practices of the religion of Islam. As always, we needed to understand more deeply the complex historical roots of modern conflict in the Middle East.
The dark side of globalization is that it implies a kind of ruthless and impersonal force: wealthy sectors of our world will simply become more wealthy at the expense of the poor who will become more destitute. We hold up to the new reality of “globalization” the timeless reality of our church which is “Catholic” or universal. Now is the time for us to rediscover what it is to be authentically “Catholic.” We are called to have the universal heart and outlook of Jesus Christ as we interact more closely with cultures, regions and histories that are so different from our own.
In addition, interreligious dialogue and understanding -- so often relegated in practice to low priority status -- has taken on a new importance for our Church. In their Pastoral Message on September 11th, the American Bishops state: "People of all faiths must be united in the conviction that terrorism in the name of religion profanes religion. The most effective counter to terrorist claims of religious justification comes from within the world's rich religious traditions and form the witness of so many people of faith who have been a powerful force for non-violent human liberation around the world."2
There is a great need for Catholics who are firmly rooted in the theological and contemplative tradition of our Church to reach out in intellectual and contemplative understanding and conversation to the religions of the world.
Pope Paul VI explained this need so beautifully in On Evangelization in the Modern World: "The Church respects and esteems these non-Christian religions because they are the living expression of the soul of vast groups of people. They carry within them the echo of thousands of years of searching for God, a quest which is incomplete but often made with great sincerity and righteousness of heart. They possess an impressive patrimony of deeply religious texts. They have taught generations of people how to pray. They are all impregnated with innumerable 'seeds of the Word' and can constitute a true 'preparation for the Gospel...'"3
We remember too that one of the sad casualties of September 11th was our nation's turning away from some historic breakthroughs in immigration laws between the United States and Mexico. There is no question that our government has had valid national security concerns, but we continue to pray for deeper ecclesial bonds of solidarity between North America and South America. We seek the intercession of St. Juan Diego, the newly canonized saint of Mexico, who experienced directly and deeply the love of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Patroness of the Americas.
We Reaffirm the Sanctity of Human Life
Massive, premeditated terrorism is one of the darkest manifestations of the Culture of Death and the ongoing spiral of violence. Our national grief and the warm comfort we received from our brothers and sisters around the world remind us powerfully of the inherent dignity of each human person and the immeasurable value of human life.
As always, our Church stands up valiantly against every form of terrorism that would violate the sanctity of human life -- terrorism conducted in the womb, terrorism that many in our society would like to conduct against the elderly, the terrorism of capital punishment, the implicit terrorism in human cloning and immoral forms of stem cell research as well as the terrorism of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. September 11th reaffirmed dramatically for us the call to be consistent and coherent in our efforts to reassert the sanctity of human life in all its stages.
We Embrace Our Vocation of Peacemaking and the Church's Teaching on War and Peace
The best tribute we can offer the dead and their families who continue to grieve is to resolve to work for peace and social justice in our world and to invest our lives more deeply for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
The events of September 11th and their aftermath led me back in prayer and study to the Pastoral Letters of the American Bishops on War and Peace issued in 1983 (The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response) and 1993 (The Harvest of Justice is Sown in Peace).
I encourage all Catholics and non-Catholics alike in the Diocese of Wilmington to read and pray over these timeless documents. Their holistic approach to questions concerning biblical spirituality and Catholic moral teaching, terrorism and international conflict, the call to peacemaking and formation of conscience, their emphasis on securing human rights and assuring sustainable and equitable development make these pastoral letters as relevant today in the post-September 11th world as they were when they were first issued.
We are called to embrace our vocation to peacemaking in our families, our communities and our world. In his January 1, 2002 Message for the World Day of Peace, Pope John Paul II reminds us: "Prayer for Peace is not an afterthought to the work of peace. It is of the very essence of building the peace of order, justice, and freedom. To pray for peace is to open the human heart to the inroads of God's power to renew all things."
May the Queen of Peace comfort all who grieve the loss of loved ones from terroristic attacks on this one year anniversary of September 11th. And may we all step boldly into the future with the love of Christ as our guide.
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