All Articles

Deacon Clarence Johnson was inside the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 struck. The sacrificial love he witnessed that day taught him what it means to lay down one’s life for another. A September 14 aerial view of the Pentagon during cleanup operations following the September 11, 2001, attacks. (Photo: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons) By Deacon Clarence Johnson “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 Sept. 11

Rescue workers dig through rubble from the destroyed World Trade Center in Manhattan, NY. (Photo: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons) Several weeks after Islamist terrorists hijacked four planes, wreaking havoc in lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon in the name of deranged religious convictions, I was at dinner in the papal apartment with John Paul II and three of his closest associates. The mood was somber, which was unusual at that table. The pope’s hope for a “new springt