World Needs Religion to be Weapon of Peace, Spokesman says

(September 08, 2011) If humanity wants to build peace out of the ruins of September 11, 2001, religion has to play a major role in dialogue, said the Vatican spokesman, and Director of Vatican Radio Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi. The day of the attacks 10 years ago was "a monstrous day," he said during a presentation at Vatican Radio on Tuesday of a new book on the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy. Dialogue is the key to overcoming hatred and the risk of religious fanaticism, he said. "If we want to build peace for humanity, we have to be able to develop a discourse in which the religious dimension becomes an active force for peace," he added. Father Lombardi was one of a number of speakers presenting a new book in Italian written by a Vatican Radio journalist, Alessandro Gisotti, September 11: A Continuing Story. The book examines the tragedy from the point of view of people whose lives were directly affected by the disaster. Miguel Diaz, U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, said in a statement that in spite of the grief and losses endured on 9/11, the human spirit has triumphed in the face of fear, violence and tragedy. The 90-page book is published only in Italian. Its foreword was written by U.S. Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago. "Mr. Gisotti has done a great service to the memory of all those who died in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2011, and an even greater service to all those who survived," wrote the cardinal. By telling the stories of those affected by the tragedy, the author "helps keep in mind what none of us should forget and leaves us with a sense of hope because, in the end, history is what God remembers," Cardinal George wrote.