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I definitely subscribe to the idea that 9/11, to use an overused phrase, was a wake-up call. There was a year-long national teach-in on Islam - everyone read books and suddenly talked about Islam, and that was very productive. But there's no doubt that moment has passed.

9/11 allowed us to witness the ordinary face of goodness in the love that those about to die brought with them to work that day. It is fitting that we refer to a large segment of the church year as Ordinary Time because it describes the look of the true faith that, as we read of the Kingdom, is spread about us.

Sept. 11 was a shock to the whole world.

The whole world has changed after September 11th.

I must have been one of the least surprised people on earth on September 11. I felt very braced for that. I knew something like that was going to come.

These are strange times. Reason, which once combatted faith and seemed to have conquered it, now has to look to faith to save it from dissolution.

I don't believe that the Bush Administration had something to do with September 11th. I do believe that there were a lot of warning signals, but I don't think they were ignored on purpose - Bush just wanted to go to the ranch for a month.

It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda. We will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.

Initially, the horrific images of September 11th triggered an enormous wave of solidarity.

I couldn't follow the events of September 11 because I was proofreading a novel I'd just completed - on Islam and its quarrel with the West - that I'd promised, six months earlier, to deliver to my editor on September 12, 2001.