Maryana Garcia
This week marks 25 years since coordinated terrorist attacks on the United States shocked the world, leaving thousands injured or dead.
Since 2001, how have popes spoken about the tragedy?
Hours after the attacks, Pope John Paul II called 9/11 a “dark day in the history of humanity”.
That week, in a fax sent to the Archdiocese of New York, the pontiff called for a rejection of hatred and violence.
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Read by Cardinal Edward Egan
To all I solemnly repeat the Gospel injunction not to be conquered by evil but to conquer evil with good, to trust in the power of God's grace to transform human hearts and to work fearlessly to shape the future of justice, peace and security for the children of the world.
Pope Benedict XVI visited Ground Zero in 2008 and prayed for healing.
POPE BENEDICT XVI
We ask you, in your compassion to bring healing to those who, because of their presence here that day, suffer from injuries and illness. Heal, too, the pain of still-grieving families and all who lost loved ones in this tragedy. Give them strength to continue their lives with courage and hope.
In 2015, Pope Francis landed in New York. During an interreligious meeting at the Ground Zero Memorial he said the “grief was palpable”.
POPE FRANCIS
Acts of destruction are never impersonal, abstract or merely material. They always have a face, a concrete story, names.
But Francis said tragedy had another face: the power of love and remembrance.
POPE FRANCIS
This place of death became a place of life too, a place of saved lives, a hymn to the triumph of life over the prophets of destruction and death, to goodness over evil, to reconciliation and unity over hatred and division.
Francis said being at Ground Zero with other leaders from different religious traditions gave him hope for peace in homes, families, communities and throughout the world.
