By Dennis Sadowski
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In the days following the Sept. 11 attacks, Dalila Benameur and her Muslim friends in Bridgeview, Ill., were afraid to leave their homes even when their pantries ran low and their refrigerators emptied. The women felt threatened by the handful of intimidating drivers who would cruise past the town's mosque waving Confederate flags and shouting anti-Muslim epithets.

That's when Andreatte Brachman and her friends from St. Fabian Catholic Church stepped in.

Brachman and company offered to accompany the women on errands as a sign of solidarity to alleviate growing concerns that Muslims hated America.

"It served almost as a bond," Brachman said of the outreach to the Muslim women.

Of course, it helped that the St. Fabian women had gotten to know their Muslim neighbors before the attacks as part of the Muslim-Catholic Women's Group that had evolved from the two faith communities several years earlier.

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