Nations’ Many Faiths Find Strength as One

In cathedrals and town squares, with flags and hymns and brimming eyes, people of all sorts and persuasions came together Friday for prayer and remembrance--vowing to fight terrorism, but also to honor the values for which America stands.

Across the United States, and in many of the countries from which this immigrant nation sprang, thousands answered President Bush’s call for mourning and rededication after the terrorist attacks that seem likely to mark last Tuesday as the deadliest day in U.S. history since the Civil War.

In New York, people gathered for Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and for candlelight vigils on the Brooklyn Promenade across the East River from where the World Trade Center once dominated the city’s iconic skyline.

Truck drivers on a harbor-front expressway honked to salute a flag-draped sign that said: “America is still standing.”

In Seattle, a ferryboat glided to a stop in Elliott Bay and sounded its mournful horn as a downtown crowd numbering in the thousands heard a Muslim cleric ask God “to bless and to protect this land--my land and your land.”

In Boston, families thrown together by cruel chance met in the seclusion of an airport hotel to mourn relatives lost when two airliners that departed the city became instruments of terror.

In Chicago, an elderly woman dressed in black sat on the steps of a Roman Catholic church in the Bucktown neighborhood, crying quietly on the first cool day of the autumn.

And at midday in Europe, millions of ordinary people paused to share their American cousins’ pain in a moment of silence perhaps unequaled since the hush that occurred at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, when the guns of World War I stopped firing.

At Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, some 200,000 gathered for a memorial service presided over by government officials and church leaders. And in London, 2,500 mourners joined Prime Minister Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth II--grim-faced and dressed in black--at a service in St. Paul’s Cathedral that began with “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

‘The Democratic World Will Put Up a Fight’

But some of Europe’s most poignant displays were individual and improvised.

A young boy, wearing the traditional black garments of a chimney sweep, stood atop a London chimney pot like a begrimed Statue of Liberty.

In Paris, someone draped an “I Love New York” T-shirt over the steel gates of the U.S. Embassy.

And in Germany, 59-year-old Manfred Nippe, old enough to remember a childhood saved from desperation by aid from the Marshall Plan, summed up what the United States means to him:

“As a Berliner, I will always be grateful to the Americans. Thanks to them we live in freedom and democracy today.

“What has happened is shocking and alarming,” he said, “but in a case of emergency, the democratic world will put up a fight.”

Nippe’s words, like those of many others, echoed the message President Bush delivered at the Washington National Cathedral:

“Our unity is a kinship of grief, and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our enemies,” Bush said. “And this unity against terror is now extending across the world.”

As he finished speaking and resumed his seat, his father, former President George H.W. Bush, reached out and gave his hand a fleeting squeeze.

In Houston, Bush’s call to arms was trumpeted by Pastor Ed Young of the Second Baptist Church, who received thunderous applause when he declared: “We are at war and we as Americans will fight and we will win and God will march with us as we go to battle.”

Elsewhere in Houston, the emphasis was on recognizing religious diversity at a time when the hunt for the terrorists’ leaders is focusing on the Middle East and Muslim nations in South Asia.

At a mosque in Sugarland, hundreds of Muslims prayed for victims of the attack. Former Houston Rockets basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon was among those pleading for tolerance.

“I hope people will have more understanding of our religion,” he said.

And a noontime prayer service at the Oklahoma City National Memorial emphasized patriotism. People wearing red, white and blue ribbons and flag-covered T-shirts listened in silence as a lone trumpeter played the national anthem.

Patriotism and tolerance were mingled in Seattle. Thousands of people waved U.S. flags and wore flag stickers and flag bandannas, as well as New York Yankee caps.

At one point a man shouted “USA!” and the crowd took up the chant.

In today’s world, “USA” has a broader meaning than ever before, those who addressed the crowd seemed to say.

“As Americans, we must determine never to hurt or terrorize other Americans of Arab descent or Islamic faith. Intolerance and stereotyping are the opposite of what America stands for,” Washington Gov. Gary Locke said.

And Jamil Abdul Razzak, imam of Idriss Mosque, the scene of an attempted arson Thursday night, said:

“We as American Muslims condemn the horrifying terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11. We are shocked and angered by such brutality, and share all the conditions, all the emotions of American fellow citizens. . . .

“I am a Muslim. I am an American. I love America. God bless America,” he said.

A thousand miles away, Denver’s International Airport struggled to resume normal operations, but travelers and airline workers put aside their frustrations for a moment of silence at noon like so many others.

Crews from United Airlines hugged and held hands. United lost two planes in the terrorist attack, and one of the doomed pilots was based here.

At the federal office complex, workers streamed out of high-rise buildings in a scene that reminded some of Manhattan three days before.

But these throngs were moved not by terror but by the bells of local churches. They stood in silence, each lost in private thoughts.

Sylvia Trujillo, for one, said she found it unsettling.

“I thought it would be uplifting, but it wasn’t,” she said. “You can put the thoughts of the attack out of your mind throughout the day, but I guess this was the first moment that I had a chance to stop and think about those people and send out my thoughts and prayers.”

Thousands more overflowed the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Jose H. Gomez, auxiliary bishop of Denver, sternly declared that “suffering is what God uses to wake us up to our purpose in the world.”

In the nation’s heartland, similar scenes of devotion and dedication were repeated.

At the Minnesota Church Center in Minneapolis, leaders from more than a dozen faiths and denominations--including Catholics and Jews, Hindus and Muslims, Eastern Orthodox and Mormons--stood shoulder to shoulder to denounce Tuesday’s violence.

City Bustle Gives Way to Silence

In Jefferson City, church bells rang as Missouri Gov. Bob Holden led a prayer service outside the capitol, the Missouri River flowing wide and muddy in the background.

“We pray for those we have lost, that they may find eternal rest with our God,” Holden said. “We pray . . . that those who have perpetrated this evil atrocity upon humanity be found and delivered to the authorities.”

In Chicago, the customarily impatient rush of traffic gave way to the bustle of people making their way to vigils. In Pioneer Court, a crowd of several thousands--many carrying or wearing U.S. flags--briefly flooded Michigan Avenue. Even cab drivers didn’t seem to mind.

To the south, church bells tolled in Atlanta, the city that bills itself as “too busy to hate.”

Inside the Cathedral of St. Phillip, many wore red, white and blue as they prayed--especially for parishioners Georgia and Shelby White. They have not heard from son Adam, who was working at the World Trade Center on Tuesday.

On the Georgia Tech campus, a crowd of nearly 10,000 students was stunned to learn that a 1987 alumnus was on the second plane that crashed into the World Trade Center.

In Miami, where fear of anti-Castro protests caused the Latin Grammys to be moved to Los Angeles, 46-year-old Steve Hagen said, “The problems we have in Miami now seem very insignificant.”

Jim Bragg, a retired South Carolina policeman now living in St. Augustine, Fla., was at a Miami ceremony too. “I lost my brother policemen in New York,” he said. “‘I had to be here.”

And as night settled across the country, thousands of people responded to an Internet plea by lighting candles.

Europe too came to a silent, tearful stop Friday. From Buckingham Palace to Notre Dame to the Colosseum, people interrupted their day at noon, bowed their heads and observed three minutes of silence.

It was a gesture with special significance. When World War I, the most profoundly devastating conflict in the history of Western Europe, finally ended with an armistice at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918, the moment was marked by silence. It became an annual ritual.

In Rome on Friday, an Italian law student clad in a stars-and-stripes bandanna mourned the World Trade Center as if it had been in his own neighborhood. At a memorial ceremony outside the Circus Maximus, Nicola Calvi said he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“I have it still impressed on my visual memory, but in reality you cannot see it,” he said. “It’s unthinkable that the towers are no longer there. . . . It’s heartbreaking.”

As church bells gave way to an awesome silence in the cobblestoned, congested streets of Old World capitals, British cabdrivers and French schoolchildren and Roman tourism workers in gladiator costumes resembled a freeze-frame of grief.

Emotions were especially intense in Britain and Ireland, nations that have close U.S. ties and lost citizens in the terrorist attacks. At least 100 Britons are known to have been killed, and hundreds more are among the 4,700 missing in New York.

More than 8,000 people, many of them in tears, gathered outside St. Paul’s, the 17th century cathedral that became a symbol of survival and rebirth when it withstood the Nazi blitz. George Carey, the archbishop of Canterbury, told the United States that Britain is “with you in your hour of need.”

World War II veteran Ricky Graham, 80, who served in North Africa and in the Berlin airlift, attended the St. Paul’s service in a medal-bedecked uniform.

“There is a feeling of compassion over here about what happened in America. We feel close to the people, and we can’t comprehend what you’re going through,” Graham said.

Belfast politician Michael McGimpsey’s nephew, Jason, is one of the New York firefighters whose selfless, sooty-faced heroics in lower Manhattan have been lauded across Europe: Jason made it out of the North Tower before it collapsed.

But three Irish citizens have been confirmed dead on the hijacked jets. Many others are feared buried in the rubble of the World Trade Center.

The archbishop of Dublin, Walton Empey, told a congregation of Irish leaders that Sept. 11 was “a dark day for the whole civilized world, and it will remain firmly embedded in our minds until the day we die.”

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Times staff writer Sebastian Rotella reported from Paris. Staff writers James Gerstenzang and Edmund Sanders in Washington, Maggie Farley in New York, Elizabeth Mehren in Boston, Edith Stanley in Atlanta, Anna M. Virtue in Miami, Eric Slater in Chicago, Lianne Hart in Houston, Julie Cart in Denver, Tom Gorman in Las Vegas, Kim Murphy in Seattle, Richard Boudreaux in Rome, Marjorie Miller in London and Carol J. Williams in Berlin also contributed to this story.