The Popes and 9/11: Christ’s light in history’s darkest hour
By Isabella Piro
On September 11, 2001, the United States had just been struck by four suicide attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives in different parts of the country.
Pope John Paul II was at Castel Gandolfo when he received a telephone call from the Director of the Holy See Press Office, JoaquĆn Navarro-Valls, informing him of what had happened. Deeply shaken, the Pope immediately withdraws to pray in the private chapel of the Apostolic Palace.
He then sent a telegram expressing his condolences and closeness to US President George W. Bush.
It consisted of six lines written in block capitals—the style of official communications—but Pope John Paul II’s words are profoundly human and express the grief of the entire world. He speaks of “unspeakable horror,” describes the terrorist attacks as “inhuman,” and calls it a “dark and tragic moment” in history.
An affront to human dignity
The following day was Wednesday, and the General Audience was held in St Peter’s Square. At the request of the Bishop of Rome, there was no applause, and the faithful remained in solemn silence.
“Yesterday was a dark day in the history of humanity, a terrible affront to human dignity,” John Paul II said, before voicing the question in everyone’s heart: “How is it possible to commit acts of such savage cruelty?”
The answer to such cruelty, he continued, lies in Christ, the foundation of hope, who ensures that evil and death do not have the final word.
Not revenge, but unity and dialogue
Meanwhile, the 180th Ordinary General Chapter of the Order of Saint Augustine was taking place in Rome. Among those attending was the American priest Father Robert Francis Prevost, the future Pope Leo XIV, who was elected Prior General on September 14, his birthday.
It therefore fell to him to preside over the closing Mass on September 21 in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo.
“We cannot fail to remember the tragic events that shook the United States on September 11,” he said in his homily. “The violence that the world witnessed last week in the United States is a tragic expression of a series of problems that are becoming increasingly acute everywhere. Hatred and violence will continue to grow as long as so many people are forced to live in extreme poverty and are oppressed by so many forms of injustice.”
“While many seek revenge,” he concluded, “Augustinians must bear witness to the Gospel and to its values of unity, dialogue, peace, and reconciliation.”
Savagery of terrorism overcome by love
A year later, Pope John Paul II continued to make tireless appeals for peace.
On Wednesday, September 11, 2002, during the General Audience, the Pope recalled the “savage attack” of twelve months earlier, the collapse of the Twin Towers, and the lives of so many innocent people swallowed by the rubble.
He firmly reiterated that terrorism “is and will always be a manifestation of inhuman ferocity” and that oppression, armed violence and war are choices that sow and produce only hatred and death.
“Reason and love,” he concluded, “are the only valid means for overcoming and resolving disputes between individuals and peoples.”
Courage to work for peace
The peace invoked by Pope John Paul II found renewed expression in the prayer of his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.
On April 20, 2008, during his Apostolic Journey to the United States, Pope Benedict visited Ground Zero.
Where the Twin Towers once stood, there was a deep void, almost a metaphor for the abyss of evil. Yet all around it is a construction site—a symbol of hope being reborn and rebuilding what was destroyed.
In silence, the Pope lit a candle in memory of the victims. He then knelt and asked God to bring peace to a violent world and to grant humanity the wisdom and courage to work tirelessly for a world in which genuine peace and love reign among nations and in every human heart.
Every human life is precious
Three years later, on September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Pope Benedict XVI sent a letter to the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, who would be created a Cardinal the following February.
Recalling the “brutal assault” of ten years earlier, Pope Benedict described it as a tragedy made even more grave by the perpetrators’ claim that they were acting in God’s name.
He firmly stressed that no circumstances can ever justify acts of terrorism. Every human life, he said, is precious in God’s sight, and no effort should be spared in promoting genuine respect throughout the world for the inalienable rights and dignity of every individual and people.
A palpable grief that cries out to heaven
Pope Francis also visited Ground Zero, which has since become a memorial consisting of two large pools of flowing water, each occupying the footprint of one of the Twin Towers.
The names of the 2,974 victims, representing 90 different nationalities, are inscribed along their edges.
During an interreligious meeting held there on September 25, 2015, Pope Francis described the 9/11 attacks as “a senseless act of destruction” and spoke of a palpable, searing grief that left people stunned and cries out to heaven.
The water flowing through the pools, he said, recalls all those lives that fell victim to people who believed destruction was the only way to resolve conflicts.
Yet the logic of violence, hatred, and revenge can produce only pain, suffering, destruction, and tears. Life, he said, is destined to triumph over the prophets of destruction and death, just as reconciliation and unity will triumph over hatred and division.
“Let us implore from on high the gift of commitment to the cause of peace,” the Bishop of Rome concluded. “Peace throughout this world which God has given us as the home of all and a home for all. Simply peace.”
Never again against one another!
When it comes to peace, “we cannot be indifferent or neutral,” Pope Francis said again on September 11, 2021.
The occasion was the G20 Interfaith Forum in Bologna, held under the theme “Time to Heal: Peace among Cultures, Understanding between Religions.”
In a message to participants, the Pope once again insisted: “Not neutral, but taking a stand for peace! Let us invoke the ius pacis—the right of everyone to resolve conflicts without violence.”
“No more war, no more against others, no more without others!” he concluded, because ultimately “young people and history will judge us on this.”
