Faces of the mystery

From the first moment I looked into that horror on Sept. 11, into that fireball, into that explosion of horror, I knew it. I knew it before anything was said about those who did it or why. I recognized an old companion. I recognized religion. Look, I am a priest for over 30 years. Religion is my life, it's my vocation, it's my existence. I'd give my life for it; I hope to have the courage. Therefore, I know it.

And I know, and recognized that day, that the same force, energy, sense, instinct, whatever, passion -- because religion can be a passion -- the same passion that motivates religious people to do great things is the same one that that day brought all that destruction. When they said that the people who did it did it in the name of God, I wasn't the slightest bit surprised. It only confirmed what I knew. I recognized it.

I recognized this thirst, this demand for the absolute. Because if you don't hang on to the unchanging, to the absolute, to that which cannot disappear, you might disappear. I recognized that this thirst for the never-ending, the permanent, the wonders of all things, this intolerance or fear of diversity, that which is different -- these are characteristics of religion. And I knew that that force could take you to do great things. But I knew that there was no greater and more destructive force on the surface of this earth than the religious passion.

My friends in the business, religious leaders, we all took to the streets to try to salvage something of it. Funny, suddenly every government official became a religious leader, reassuring us that all religions are for peace. I understand. It was embarrassing. And now I think we have a religious duty to face this ambivalence about religion, and to do something about it. To promote that which makes it a constructive force and to protect us from that which makes it a destructive force. ...

If I thought what we saw on Sept. 11, the dreadful and horrible possibilities of religion, were the only face of religion, I assure you I'd take off this collar. There is another face -- maybe harder to see after Sept. 11 and what has followed it -- but it's there. I see it every Sunday. The parish where I work is not far from the World Trade Center. The Lower East Side, 90 percent Hispanic. Poor people, many affected by death in the World Trade Center. And yet they weren't asking the great difficult questions about why, or the nature of evil.

They don't have time for that. They have to struggle to live every day. And in that struggle, which somehow embraced even that terrible day, their religion, their church, their parish stands for life, stands for hope, stands for home. It's sustains them. It helps them. It's not their opium, as Marx would say. On the contrary, it encourages them to struggle, not to give up, not to surrender. They are poor, but they know, they experience, they feel that each one of them has a link with an infinite mystery. No need to worship any other source of power, economic power, political power -- that they have a dignity that cannot be taken away from them. ...

I mean, in Latin America, which is my ethnic background, the religion has been the force that has sustained the drive for justice and liberty of millions. I mean, their statues, Our Lady and so forth, it's because no matter how poor, no matter how weak, they have come to believe and experience it. Each one of them has a link with the infinite, with that very same mystery in the name of which people kill and hate. They experience that link, that mystery, as the source of their dignity and of the dignity of others. ... And when people disappear, their loved ones, when death occurs, they imagine them resting in the arms of that mystery of absolute love. That's my daily fare. I see that every day. I saw it within hours of the World Trade Center. Everybody saw something of it on TV ...

This is the other face of religion. It's the same religious passion. The same desire for infinity. How can this be? How can it be these two opposed things? I don't know, but then maybe human passion I guess is like that. But this one, this is the most powerful one. And so after Sept. 11, and much of what followed, it is very difficult to see this, the face of love in the face of religion. We cannot forget it. It alone, I believe, has the strength to face the other face of religion. ...

When I saw this other face of religion in my parishioners as a reality, with concrete names, I knew I had to hang onto it. I had to be with them. I needed my parishioners, because the other was so destructive that I felt it threatened my own life, the sincerity of everything I had said, or preached, or done. And then they were there, and telling me, ... because I would ask them difficult questions, and they would look at me and it was so beautiful. They were suddenly ministering to me. And it's an amazing thing and a beautiful thing and I knew that it was as much that reality to which I had devoted my life as that other horror.

And so I don't understand, but I know this, it is this power to sustain the poor that I want my religion to be. ...

Time has passed since Sept. 11, 2001, and life has returned to normal, only that the normal now contains, still as an open wound, an open window into mystery. What happened that day -- those bodies, fire, the airplanes crashing, relentlessly again and again. The people running away, the horror in the faces of those who were seeing this. All of that in the name of God, the very same God which, but a few blocks away, was sustaining the hope and the courage of my parishioners, the poor Hispanics of the Lower East Side. They too were appealing to God, appealing to God to console me. They were ministering to me. And since then until now, forever I'll be faced with those two faces of God. Two faces of the mystery. Two faces of religion. And I know, of course, what I have to choose. I hope I have the friends and support of people who would stop me if they see me ever moving into the direction that may open the slightest bit of the door to the God of destruction and hatred.

Which is the true face of religion? I keep asking myself. Which is the true face of God? I don't think there are two Gods, I think there is only one God. Which is the true face of God? Well, I don't know, I only know this: I will never worship a God that doesn't reveal itself as humility, as poor. That's how I have changed, and I hope I will be faithful to it until it's my turn to disappear into the mystery.

                   Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete
                   Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero [PBS documentary]