New York
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
18 Jul 2004
New York is some city; in many ways, The City, The Big Apple. It is the capital of the Western World.
Wall Street outranks the Bank of England as the engine of capitalism. In New York there is wealth beyond imagining, human striving and misery writ large. No wonder that it is the “Great Satan” to Islamic terrorists.
I was there last weekend returning from a priests’ gathering. The weather was lovely, the bustle was a bit less, because many locals were away, their places taken by tourists like myself.
During my few days I wanted especially to visit the exhibition of Byzantine icons at the Metropolitan Museum and pay my respects at Ground Zero, the site of the September 11 outrage of 2001.
Orthodox Christianity is often described as one of the two lungs of the Christian world and this collection of exhibits, including rarely seen treasures from the Mt. Sinai monastery, gave an unequalled entrée into the world of Byzantine art, especially their beautiful icons. At their best but not always, icons give us a glimpse of godliness, an insight into the Transcendent rarely found in any other art form.
The site of the World Trade Centre covers twenty acres and it is now an immense chasm, in preparation for the world’s highest building.
There were hundreds of visitors there, with a huge Stars and Stripes flag fluttering in the breeze and a defiant cross, made from two girders found in the wreckage, proclaiming its message of hope. The Christian symbolism was clear.
Certainly Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism are much stronger, but the U.S.A. is also more anti-religious and indeed anti-Catholic than Australia. The culture wars are fought more bitterly there, pockets of misery and degradation are more explicit but many Christians across the denominations are eloquent defenders of faith, life and love.
The American Catholic Church has taken a rightful pounding on the sexual abuse crisis and its mismanagement, but there are other sections of U.S. society where the corruption is about as bad or worse, but they have received nothing like the same hostile press coverage.
In the U.S.A. God is more of a factor in public discourse. The Anglican Chapel of St. Philip is next to Ground Zero, and although covered with debris after the collapse, not even a window was broken. It was a centre of physical and spiritual renewal for the firemen and workers afterwards. By chance I was there for their daily commemoration service, when all are united to recite together the prayer of St. Francis for peace and a bell is tolled for four sets of five peals. The chapel walls are covered with commemorative drapes from around the world.
September 11 has entered American consciousness much more than here and we hope there will be no repeat.
