Twenty-five years after the attacks that changed America and the world, Stan Chu Ilo reflects on the victims, the wars that followed, the persistence of global violence, and the unfinished task of building a world in which every human life is equally grievable.

I was a student in Perugia, Italy, on the day 9/11 happened. I was studying Italian and living at the Cathedral of St. Lawrence with fellow priests from Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. We gathered for lunch that afternoon, only to be shaken by the images playing on CNN. The room fell silent. None of us ate. We had all lost the taste for food as we watched the iconic Twin Towers crumble and the Pentagon, the seat of U.S. military power, come under attack. None of us returned to class. We all felt attacked.

A profound unity emerged in our collective grief and outrage. Even though none of us were American or Western, we felt that something essential in our shared humanity had been violated. The uncertainty was palpable not only in the United States but across Europe. As the tragedy unfolded, no one knew whether this was an isolated assault or the beginning of a cascading attack on the West. But we all knew that evil had struck at the heart of human civilization, and the wound was universal.

The world was forever changed by 9/11. But I am not convinced it changed for the better. For the 2,977 people who lost their lives in the attacks that day, and for their families; for the thousands who later died from illnesses caused by the toxic mix of pulverized concrete, asbestos, burning jet fuel, mercury, dioxins, and other materials from the World Trade Center we owe a debt of remembrance and justice. Each year the bells toll in their honor, one chime for every life lost. Ground Zero has become a perpetual memorial, with water flowing like the river the prophet Ezekiel saw: water that brings new life and hope to dry lands and dry bones (Ezekiel 47:1–12; Ezekiel 37:1–14).

But remembrance alone is not enough. Twenty-five years later, the world has become more violent and more destructive. We rightly condemn the terrorists—members of violent extremist organizations responsible for immense harm and loss of life— who brought devastation to innocent people. We mourn the wickedness of those who planned such unspeakable evil, but today more than ever, we are still killing the innocent both by terrorists and through wars unrelentingly being waged today by many states and their allies.

I often wonder how human beings can descend so low, how hatred can so thoroughly consume the heart that one becomes capable of such atrocities. No one deserves to die in such unmitigated violence. But if the victims of 9/11 could speak to us from their graves, what would they say about the state of our world today?

Many cultures honor the dead by living out their dreams and carrying forward their legacies. This, I believe, is what we must do for the victims of 9/11-ending the bloodshed of the innocent through the epidemic of war and violence in the world and economic systems that manufacture death for the poor. Just as America continues to feel the pain of 9/11, it must ensure it does not directly or indirectly inflict similar pain on innocent people elsewhere.

When terrorists commit atrocities, we condemn them as irrational, vile, and devoid of conscience. But when states are committing unmatched violence against the innocents and crimes against humanity in many parts of the world, we often justify them as “legitimate” or “self-defense” or a preemptive or defensive strike because it is carried out by a democratic government.

In this warped logic, the violence of terrorists is irrational, but we deceptively claim that the violence, wars and atrocities committed by members of the Security Council and their allies are rational. But in truth, many modern states who abandon diplomacy because they are hell-bent on forcing their will on other nations through war are not only more irrational than the terrorists; they are also more destructive in their reach and inflict long-lasting pain and suffering on innocent people.

We all know that today the primary sources of terror, destruction, and large-scale suffering may extend beyond extremist groups to include states, particularly members of the Security Council, whose policies inflict devastation upon civilian populations.

To honor our fallen brothers and sisters, the United States must pledge to end wars and to dissociate from any state or militia that destroys innocent lives. Pope Leo XIII once urged the world to “disarm our hearts and our hands.” Making such a commitment would serve as a fitting tribute to the victims of September 11th.

The love the world once had for America after 9/11 is fading. It is not turning into hatred, but into pity and aversion. This became painfully clear during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the world watched a great nation struggle under a leadership that denied science and politicized even death. Many now wonder about the future of a world once led by America, a nation increasingly turning inward and turning its back on global cooperation.

The victims of 9/11 did not live to see the domestic and international consequences of the “America First” ideology. This is a very narrow and apocalyptic ideology that has dismantled global alliances, weakened humanitarian institutions, weaponized international cooperation and turned tariffs into a tool to cripple the economies of America’s allies, who were all united in grief and solidarity with America on 9/11. Today, under a very nativist regime in the U.S., the architecture of peace, stability, and global solidarity has been strained, even fractured.

The lesson of 9/11 is that we are all in this together. When any person is harmed, each of us is diminished. As Scripture teaches, “If one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Corinthians 12:26). Something of my humanity is destroyed when another person’s dignity or life is destroyed.

9/11 challenges America to become a beacon of liberty, peace, and prosperity for all nations—not a nation trapped by the illusion that military or economic power can guarantee security without justice, solidarity, and cooperation.

It challenges us to confront the structural injustices and systems of violence that fuel hatred and asymmetrical warfare. It calls us to unite as one common humanity to heal unjust structures and the economies of scale, militarism and saber-rattling that promote the mentality that might is right.

It invites us to a civilization of love, global fraternity, and commitment to the nonviolent transformation of relationships. It calls us to question global economies and political orders that manufacture death through discrimination, protectionism, and the dehumanization of the non-Western and non-White “other.”

As we grieve the victims of 9/11 and the painful memories etched into America’s national psyche, may we also remember the countless “non-grievable” victims around the world whose deaths in the never-ending pandemic of wars haunting the world today do not make headlines, whose suffering is ignored, and whose humanity is sacrificed for power and profit.

May our remembrance today lead us not only to mourn the victims of 9/11 but to a commitment to heal this wounded, broken and violent world through a love that orders our systems and institutions towards social transformation.

And may America once more offer leadership toward realizing Abraham Lincoln’s enduring vision: “with malice toward none, with charity for all.”