Twenty-five years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States, the Catholic Church recalls how successive Popes have responded to that tragedy with a consistent appeal for peace, dialogue, and reconciliation.
Pope St. John Paul II was at Castel Gandolfo when he received the news from the Holy See Press Office Director, JoaquÃn Navarro-Valls. Deeply shaken, he withdrew to pray in the private chapel. He then sent a telegram to US President George W. Bush in which he described the attacks as an “unspeakable horror” and an “inhuman” act, calling it a dark and tragic moment in history.
The next day, at his General Audience in St. Peter’s Square, John Paul II asked for no applause and observed a solemn silence. He called September 11 “a dark day in the history of humanity, a terrible affront to human dignity,” and asked how such savage cruelty was possible. His answer, he said, was found in Christ, who ensures that evil and death do not have the final word.
Among those in Rome at that time was American priest Fr. Robert Francis Prevost, the future Pope Leo XIV, who was attending the 180th Ordinary General Chapter of the Order of Saint Augustine. Elected Prior General on his birthday, September 14, he presided over the closing Mass on September 21 at Santa Maria del Popolo. In his homily he said the violence was a tragic expression of problems growing acute everywhere, fueled by extreme poverty and injustice, and said that while many sought revenge, Augustinians must bear witness to unity, dialogue, peace and reconciliation.
A year later, on September 11, 2002, John Paul II again condemned terrorism as a manifestation of inhuman ferocity. He recalled the collapse of the Twin Towers and the innocent lives lost, insisting that oppression, armed violence and war only sow hatred and death, and that only reason and love can resolve disputes between peoples.
Pope Benedict XVI continued that prayer for peace. On April 20, 2008, during his Apostolic Journey to the United States, he visited Ground Zero. Where the Twin Towers once stood was a deep void, surrounded by a construction site that symbolized hope and rebuilding. Benedict lit a candle, knelt in silence, and prayed for God to bring peace to a violent world and grant humanity the wisdom and courage to work for a world where genuine peace and love reign.
On the tenth anniversary in 2011, Benedict wrote to Archbishop Timothy Dolan, President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, calling the attacks a brutal assault made even more grave by the perpetrators’ claim to act in God’s name. He stressed that no circumstances can ever justify terrorism, that every human life is precious, and that respect for the inalienable rights and dignity of all peoples must be promoted.
Pope Francis also prayed at Ground Zero, by then transformed into a memorial of two flowing pools marking the towers’ footprints, with the names of 2,974 victims from 90 nations inscribed on the edges. During an interreligious meeting there on September 25, 2015, he described 9/11 as a senseless act of destruction that left a palpable, searing grief crying out to heaven. The flowing water, he said, recalls lives lost to those who believed destruction was the only solution. He warned that violence, hatred and revenge produce only pain and tears, while life will triumph over the prophets of destruction, and reconciliation over division.
That call was repeated on September 11, 2021, at the G20 Interfaith Forum in Bologna. In his message themed “Time to Heal,” Francis said we cannot be indifferent or neutral in the face of war, but must take a stand for peace and 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 said, because young people and history will judge us on this.