Archbishop Lori calls for unity, prayers on 20th anniversary of 9/11 attacks

Marking the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States, Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori said the American people were “changed by what happened that day.”

“Those terrible events would rend our hearts and minds,” Archbishop Lori said in a Sept. 10 written statement, “forever changing our understanding of what it is to be safe and free.”

“We remember those who lost their lives,” the archbishop said. “We pray for the eternal repose of their souls. We also recall the ongoing toll the attacks took on so many lives and the immeasurable suffering borne by family members and friends to this day.”

The archbishop said the worst of tragedies “brought out the best of us: the courageous and selfless service of first responders and emergency workers who heroically risked their lives to save others, and the ways both great and small that we banded together as a nation to care for and support one another.”

The anniversary should remind all of what a “precious gift” unity is, he said.

“It should not take a tragedy such as these terrorist attacks to bring us together,” Archbishop Lori said. “Aware of the many divisions in our world and in our nation, perhaps remembering 9/11 will prompt us, through God’s grace, to a renewed commitment to building up the unity of the human family.”

The archbishop highlighted St. John Paul II’s observations in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, when the Polish pontiff said those who believe in God know that evil and death do not have the final say.

“As we remember and pray,” Archbishop Lori said, “let us recommit ourselves to being agents of love and truth, people rooted in the hope of the resurrection who, even in the darkest of nights, shine as a light brightly visible.

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