Oct. 2024
On September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda terrorists highjacked four commercial airliners, three of which were deliberately crashed into two towers of The World Trade Center in New York and The Pentagon, in Arlington, VA. A fourth plane, reportedly intended for the United States Capitol, was taken over by passengers and crashed in Somerset County, PA.
Within the next few days we at Schlafly had to make the difficult decision whether to cancel our Hop In The City Beer Festival on Saturday, September 15th. Any alert readers (ARs) who were among the hundreds in attendance that day 23 years ago will recall that we decided to proceed with the Festival while respectfully honoring the thousands of victims of terrorism four days earlier. This proved to be the right decision. We weren't going to let the terrorists crush our spirit. As a nation we needed to celebrate our unity, our freedom and our resilience.
What some ARs may not recall is that six months earlier, in March of 2001, the Taliban (another extremist group similar to but distinct from Al Qaeda) had famously destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan. While this destruction did not involve the horrifying loss of human life on the scale of the attacks of 9/11, observers from around the world were still appalled by the wanton demolition of a cultural heritage.
Twenty-nine years earlier, on May 21, 1972 a smaller scale attack on a cultural heritage had occurred in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome when a Hungarian named Laszlo Toth started battering Michelangelo's Pieta with a hammer. One of the onlookers who interrupted Toth's assault was St. Louis sculptor Bob Cassilly, whom some ARs probably remember. Unlike the Bamiyan Buddhas, the Pieta has been restored and is back on public display.
The Angel will be back.
I was reminded of these incidents on the morning of Wednesday, September 18th, when I received a call from Msgr. Henry Breier, the Rector of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, informing me that The Angel of Harmony had sustained serious damage in an act of vandalism the night before. This news was literally gut wrenching. This sculpture, which was situated in a garden adjacent to the Basilica, had been donated by my mother, Adelaide Schlafly, and dedicated in 1999.
It depicted an African-American angel standing over three children of different ethnicities: Asian, European and Hispanic. The message of racial harmony was reinforced by windchimes providing musical harmony. The attack was a painful insult to the memory of my mother, who had died in 2012 at the age of 97. The attempt to cancel the message of racial harmony was especially offensive.
I was relieved to be told that The Angel of Harmony can probably be almost fully restored. While he is away, ARs may want to view another significant sculpture on display inside the Cathedral Basilica. Near the northeast entrance to the Basilica, in the vestibule at the base of the stairs leading to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, there's a full sized replica of Michelangelo's Pieta.
The replica is one of twelve bronzes cast by the Marinelli foundry in Agnone, Italy from plaster molds taken directly from the Carrara marble original in 1932. Visitors can go right up to the replica and examine it closely on all sides, which cannot be done with the original in St. Peter's, where security is especially enhanced since Toth's attack. The extraordinary artistry is evident in ways that cannot be appreciated from photographs or by viewing the original from behind protective barricades.
I would encourage all ARs, whether they choose to view the Pieta replica or not, to recall the spirit that was so evident at Hop In The City on September 15, 2001, and throughout all America in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Grab a beer and toast the gentle and indomitable spirit of The Angel of Harmony.
Tom Schlafly
Chairman
Schlafly | The Saint Louis Brewery
