Dietrich Bonhoeffer
9/11 - 22 years later
Photo by History in HD on Unsplash
Two years ago, I shared my NYC nostalgia and 9/11 recollections on Catholic Stand:
Around 7:30 on the morning of September 11, 2001, I came up from the PATH (Port Authority Trans Hudson) train station, multiple levels below the World Trade Center....
I later saw throngs of people escaping Manhattan, reminiscent of 1998’s The Siege. Yet much different than that movie, I cannot recall New Yorkers singling out any groups as enemies or crying for vengeance....
Later, I became more aware that anti-family practices had been getting imposed on the Middle East, which certainly did not win us any friends (cf, The Hillary Plan, Bucks County Courier Times, 2001). Yet the terrorists who struck the World Trade Center didn’t strike global elites, financial tycoons, or population control masterminds. Their victims were primarily office workers from the five boroughs and New Jersey....
When I started writing this reflection...I hoped to look back with the benefit of a Catholic moral reflection.... Then came the shockingly fast events of August 15th....
President Biden confused the decision about withdrawing from Afghanistan with what appears to have been an ill-prepared operation that effectively abandoned people. Yet, hasn’t he long exhibited a defective moral compass in his decision-making [?]. His apparent belief that he can reconcile policies/practices that are anti-human life and anti-marriage/family with a profession of Catholicism are bizarre and scandalous – to say the least.
When I was leaving NYC on 9/11/01, it was aboard an Amtrak train. I spotted an older lady who looked out of place. With her rain coat and hair style from another time/place, she very much reminded me of my own mom, who had died less than two years earlier.
Noticing that my mom's look alike was praying the Rosary, I commented that she had the right idea. Looking directly at me with tears in her eyes, she pleadingly responded: "It's our only hope."
On 9/11/01 and every day of our lives, God is indeed our only hope!
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About the Author
Joe Tevington is a proudly orthodox Catholic, a husband since 1986, a dad to two married adult children, a grandpa to two, and a civil service retiree. He is a sign language fluent certified rehabilitation counselor with graduate degrees in deafness rehabilitation, religious studies/moral theology, & Christian counseling psychology, as well as a catechetical diploma and certificates in benefits planning and Catholic social ministry. He deeply appreciates Catholic teaching on the sanctity of human life and the sanctity of the transmission of human life, as well as how they are to inform us in our apostolates and ministries.
On much lighter notes, he fancies himself to be the foremost authority on his native Brooklyn, when it comes to architecture, geography, history, Italian food, Saturday Night Fever, stick ball, stoop ball, or wiffle ball.
