Dean Stephen C. Payne
Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America September 11, 2019

9/11 Remembrance

Thank you for joining us as we gather as a Law School community to remember the terrible events of September 11, 2001. Although it’s been 18 years, for many of us, the events of that day are seared in our memories. If you were very young, or not here in Washington then, I encourage you to ask your professors or staff members or others what it was like to be in the nation’s capital as our homeland was attacked.

There were wars and rumors of wars, so to speak, as most of us sheltered in place, watched the Twin Towers collapse on television, and wondered what would come next. With a group of colleagues and friends, I walked out of Washington, D.C. into Virginia -- that’s right: walked, because the roads were closed -- over the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Some of you may not have realized that the Key Bridge is named after the author of our National Anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which the young lawyer penned while aboard a ship in the Baltimore Harbor after watching the tremendous shelling of Fort McHenry. That was on September 13, 1814, not long after the British had burned many of the important government buildings here in Washington, D.C., as part of the War of 1812. Now here I was, walking out of our nation’s capital, after our country had been attacked, across the bridge named for Key, and I could see in the distance the smoke rising from our military headquarters, the Pentagon. It was surreal, to say the least.

I wondered where my family was, because the cell phone networks were down. Thank God they were ok, but many more were not. Nearly 3000 people lost their lives in New York, at the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania, where courageous passengers fought to save lives and lost their own.

A lawyer in town, who later became my colleague, woke that morning to find a note on his pillow from his wife, saying how much she loved him. She had put off a business trip for a day to celebrate his birthday with him. Not much later she called him from the sky, in the plane heading for the Pentagon, to say good-bye. He doesn’t celebrate his birthday anymore.

When evil visits your doorstep, as it has even mine in these last days, and you look it in the eye and realize there is nothing you can do to stop it, or to reverse its effects once it has struck, you have a choice: despair or hope. You are presented with a question: Is my faith real, or is it a lie I tell myself to get to sleep at night? I’ll never forget the images of people holding hands and jumping off the Towers, knowing that they were going to die no matter what.

I encourage you to listen to the stories of the survivors of 9/11. The families and friends of the first responders who charged in to help and gave their lives to save others. The families and friends who had fleeting moments to say good-bye, and those who couldn’t get through or get any word of their loved ones for a very long time. There are great stories of hope and meaning, of marching on, and of not letting evil produce despair, its only road to some semblance of victory. In our moment of silence, maybe take your stories of suffering and offer them up in solidarity with, and for the benefit of, the families and friends of the victims of 9/11. Maybe find your hope and meaning in union with them and the God who is Love despite evil.

Now I will mention a brief timeline of some of the events of that day. [Timeline of Events]

Now, please, let’s take a moment of silence together, to remember, and to remember never to forget, and to offer our prayers or our thoughts or our stillness as we each see fit.

[Moment of Silence] Thank you all for coming.