Friar Johnpaul Cafiero is the chaplain at Padua Franciscan High School and the Parma Police Department. He feels a connection to the Sept. 11 attacks and the World Trade Center. “I was there,” he said.
A native New Yorker stationed in Chicago at the time, Friar JP, as he’s known, was at ground zero two weeks later. He had friends and a family member killed on 9/11. Friar JP was even an NYPD officer before being called to the friary.
This was personal.
“Two weeks before, I was having lunch with my dad on the top of the World Trade Center,” he said.
It’s not something he can ever forget.
“I remember the smell, that smell of jet fuel, of metal, of plastics burning… and you can’t get that out.”
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