US ambassador: John Paul II saw 9/11 as attack on all of humanity

Denver, Colo., Sep 9, 2011 / 00:21 am

Pope John Paul II saw the September 11, 2001 terrorist atrocities as attacks not only on the United States, but on “all of humanity,” recounts James R. Nicholson, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican.

“We must stop these people who kill in the name of God,” the Pope told Nicholson two days after the attacks, the ambassador recalls in a column for Catholic News Agency.

Nicholson recounts the Pope’s reaction to the attacks and how the two men prayed together for the victims and their families.

He also says that the Pope’s words were “invaluable”  to the U.S. in assembling a coalition to respond to the terrorists based in Afghanistan.

Though John Paul II was “first and foremost a man of peace,” he also understood the doctrine of just war and the responsibility of leaders to protect the innocent from evil forces, Nicholson said.

The ambassador also notes the late pontiff’s “uncommon sense” about globalism and the complexities of people and cultures and his knowledge of what ideologues can do to the freedom and dignity of innocent people.

Read Ambassador Nicholson’s column at: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column.php?n=1809.