The Bishop Writes

(From the Oct. 4, 2001 edition of the Inland Register)

(Bishop Skylstad wrote the following in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. His reflections were published in the Sept. 15, 2001 edition of the Spokesman-Review, Spokane's daily newspaper.)

Moments in life can be powerfully etched in memory forever. Last Saturday evening, Sept. 8, I was among 800 participants of the Catholic Charities USA convention in Newark who went to Ellis Island to visit the museum and have dinner. I found the pictures and artifacts on display to be powerful, yet haunting. There were consistent themes: poverty; the courage of people who left homelands for a better way of life; gratitude for new-found freedom; hope that life could be better.

We traveled back to the mainland by ferry at about 11 that night. On the boat I looked across the bay to lower Manhattan. The twin towers of the World Trade Center were the most prominent aspect of the skyline. The scene was idyllic, awe-inspiring. No one on that ferry could have had any inkling that two days later, that remarkable vista would be changed forever in one of the greatest tragedies in our nation's history.

My flight to Washington D.C. on Monday afternoon was delayed by a fire at the Newark airport, and then by thunderstorms. I was to be in Washington for the Catholic bishops' administrative board meeting on Tuesday morning. My flight finally arrived Tuesday, shortly after 8 a.m. On our way into the city the cabbie drove fairly close by the Pentagon. No one knew of the tragedy that was to occur there, too, in less than an hour.

As a nation we are now experiencing a tragic calamity that leaves us reeling from its magnitude and its implications. The myriad stories of bravery, death, caring, grief, and profound national hurt continue to surface. There is the story of the woman, a passenger on the hijacked plane which crashed into the Pentagon, who called her husband by cell phone. She asked her husband what she should do. That is a question which describes the state of our national heart, the question so many of us ask, the question our nation asks: What should we do? How can we find meaning in this tragic experience? How can we look to the future?

This is a profound moment of faith for all of us. There are times in life when we feel utterly helpless, when our only strength is our trust in Divine Providence and the support we give one another. At noon on Tuesday, some 3,000 people jammed into the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., for Mass celebrated by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington.

Tuesday night I was at dinner with a priest and one of my fellow bishops. Just before we finished our meal, the restaurant became suddenly very quiet. Everyone got up from the table and gathered to watch the TV in the lounge. President Bush was addressing the nation. Very few people in that gathering knew one another, yet there was an indescribable sense of solidarity which reflected the feelings of our nation.

This is a special time of prayer. We pray for those who have died; for the rescuers; for the families who have lost loved ones; for our President and our national leaders. And we pray for wisdom, that we might find more effective ways of dealing with the cancerous hatred which grips so much of our world, which threatens to grip our nation, and which can invade even our churches. For those of us in the Christian tradition, Jesus is most forceful about how we are to treat our enemies: We are to love them.

This time calls all of us to a prayerful examination of our hearts and of our national soul. Perhaps in the history of our country, this will become a great moment: a moment to radically break the cycle of violence through love, forgiveness, reconciliation, and with a vision of what peace can really be, not only for our nation, but for the human family worldwide. That vision, that witness, is needed, desperately.

Justice also needs to be served. We are accountable to God and to one another.

The pictures at Ellis Island reminded me of people who trusted in the decisions they had made -- decisions made with great vision and dogged hope, with great sacrifice and courage. As I looked at the Manhattan skyline, I thought of how those dreams had become realized for so many, in so many powerful ways.

The millennium is new. We need to dream and envision as we never have before. At this time of national loss, we need to grieve and acknowledge our hurt and our pain. But most of all, with God's help we must work to build peace in our world and in every human heart.

May God bless us with wisdom.

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