Editor
When he first heard that a plane had struck the World Trade Center in New York City, Bishop Howard J. Hubbard imagined the scene.
"I conjured up a little plane, like the ones that do traffic reports," he recalled. "I thought, 'Maybe it's foggy in New York today.'"
But the report of a second plane hitting another Trade Center tower left no doubt about what had happened: "It has to be a terrorist act," he said.
In Washington
A third plane smashing into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., cemented his correct impression, one that was all the more immediate because the Bishop was in Washington at a meeting of the Administrative Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The group plans the agenda for the semi-annual meetings of the American hierarchy.
What is usually three days of agenda-setting and business meetings was truncated into one afternoon as the bishops gathered to watch TV and listen to the radio, and then went to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception to concelebrate Mass.
"It was very moving to see more than 4,000 people overflowing the basilica," Bishop Hubbard told The Evangelist.
Looking for transportation
All of the bishops then set about returning to their dioceses from the national capital, which had become, Bishop Hubbard said, "a deserted town."
With no airplanes or trains moving, he tried to rent a car, only to be told none was available.
When he contacted seminarians from the Albany Diocese who are studying for the priesthood in Washington to see if they had cars he could borrow, "I got a lesson in humility," the Bishop admitted. "One said he didn't own one. Another had had his car stolen. And the others' cars had standard shifts, which I can't drive."
Coming home
The day after the attacks, the Bishop made his way home on Amtrak, which had restored service all the way to Albany.
"In Newark, just before we went into the tunnels," he said, "we could see the smoke and dust billowing up" from the collapsed buildings of the World Trade Center.
Although the train was "incredibly crowded, with people standing in the aisles," the Bishop described a scene of "conviviality and graciousness that you don't usually see" on public transportation.
As he contemplated the tragedy last week, he was asked if he knew anyone who was killed at the Trade Center. "It remains to be seen who may have been there, who may have been killed or who might have relatives in the area," he replied.