Pope Benedict will pray for the conversion to love “of those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred” when he visits New York’s Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade towers destroyed on September 11, 2001.
A prayer he will read also commemorates those who died or were injured in the other September 11 attack at the Pentagon and on United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought off hijackers.
Nearly 3,000 people died in the September 11 attacks, including the 19 hijackers.
The pope will visit Ground Zero in lower Manhattan on April 20, the last day of his six-day visit to Washington and New York.
A beautiful and appropriate prayer to be sure, but I’m surprised that there is nothing explicitly Christian about it, unless that part was edited out by the reporter. That is, there is no mention of praying “through Jesus Christ our Lord” at the end and so on.
David Handy+
Fr. Handy,
It was always typical, when I was a boy and active in the Church of Rome, for such prayers to be preceded and followed by “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost).” I expect this will be the case here.
Personally, I wish the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church in the USA showed as much concern for its fellow Anglicans ministering in the USA as Pope Benedict does for the dead terrorists.
http://amywelborn.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/oremus-2/
The link to the Vatican website is too long, but if you follow Amy’s link above, you can find the “missal” for the American visit. The Ground Zero Prayer does end with the Aaronic blessing and the sign of the cross.
BXVI is a truly a great man of God, and one of my heroes. In the Anglican Communion there are a couple of bishops whom I respect, but [url=http://islamdom.blogspot.com/2008/04/bxvi-and-magdi-called-to-discover.html]BXVI’s leadership has been firm but Christian[/url] (KJS is firm, but not Christian; Williams is Christian but not firm).