{"id":7037,"date":"2011-09-10T07:01:09","date_gmt":"2011-09-10T11:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=7037"},"modified":"2011-09-10T07:03:21","modified_gmt":"2011-09-10T11:03:21","slug":"washington-post-the-true-story-of-the-ground-zero-cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/washington-post-the-true-story-of-the-ground-zero-cross","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post: The true story of the Ground Zero Cross"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The shape was oddly identifiable in the blasted wreckage of the World Trade Center, standing upright amid beams bent like fork tines and jagged, pagan-seeming tridents, recalls Sally Jenkins in the <em>Washington Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Rescue worker Frank Silecchia found\u00a0what has come to be known as the &#8220;Ground Zero\u00a0Cross&#8221;\u00a0on Sept. 13, 2001, two days after the terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n<p>A few days later, he spoke to a Franciscan priest named Father Brian Jordan, who was blessing remains at Ground Zero. \u201cFather, you want to see God\u2019s House?\u201d he asked. \u201cLook over there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The priest\u00a0peered through the fields of shredded metal. \u201cOh my God,\u201d he said. \u201cI see it,\u201d writes Jenkins:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As Father Brian stared, other rescue workers gathered around him. There was a long moment of silence as he beheld what he considered to be a sign. Against seeming insuperable odds, a 17-foot-long crossbeam, weighing at least two tons, was thrust at a vertical angle in the hellish wasteland. Like a cross.<\/p>\n<p>Ever since the two jets had slammed into the twin towers on Sept. 11, leaving 2,753 dead, Father Brian had been asked by countless New Yorkers, \u201cWhy did God do this?\u201d He would reply tartly, in his Brooklyn-born accent: \u201cIt had nuttin\u2019 to do with God. This was the actions of men who abused their free will.\u201d Now here was God explaining Himself. It was a revelation, proof that \u201cGod had not abandoned Ground Zero,\u201d even as the awful excavations continued.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/911-memorials-the-story-of-the-cross-at-ground-zero\/2011\/09\/07\/gIQA2mMXDK_story.html\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE to read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The shape was oddly identifiable in the blasted wreckage of the World Trade Center, standing upright amid beams bent like fork tines and jagged, pagan-seeming tridents, recalls Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post. Rescue worker Frank Silecchia found\u00a0what has come to be known as the &#8220;Ground Zero\u00a0Cross&#8221;\u00a0on Sept. 13, 2001, two days after the terrorist&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1260,1353],"class_list":["post-7037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-911-cross","tag-ground-zero-cross"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Washington Post: The true story of the Ground Zero Cross<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/washington-post-the-true-story-of-the-ground-zero-cross\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Washington Post: The true story of the Ground Zero Cross\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The shape was oddly identifiable in the blasted wreckage of the World Trade Center, standing upright amid beams bent like fork tines and jagged, pagan-seeming tridents, recalls Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post. Rescue worker Frank Silecchia found\u00a0what has come to be known as the &#8220;Ground Zero\u00a0Cross&#8221;\u00a0on Sept. 13, 2001, two days after the terrorist&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/washington-post-the-true-story-of-the-ground-zero-cross\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-09-10T11:01:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-09-10T11:03:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Washington Post: The true story of the Ground Zero Cross","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/washington-post-the-true-story-of-the-ground-zero-cross","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Washington Post: The true story of the Ground Zero Cross","og_description":"The shape was oddly identifiable in the blasted wreckage of the World Trade Center, standing upright amid beams bent like fork tines and jagged, pagan-seeming tridents, recalls Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post. Rescue worker Frank Silecchia found\u00a0what has come to be known as the &#8220;Ground Zero\u00a0Cross&#8221;\u00a0on Sept. 13, 2001, two days after the terrorist&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/washington-post-the-true-story-of-the-ground-zero-cross","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-09-10T11:01:09+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-09-10T11:03:21+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/washington-post-the-true-story-of-the-ground-zero-cross","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/washington-post-the-true-story-of-the-ground-zero-cross","name":"Washington Post: The true story of the Ground Zero Cross","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-09-10T11:01:09+00:00","dateModified":"2011-09-10T11:03:21+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/washington-post-the-true-story-of-the-ground-zero-cross#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/washington-post-the-true-story-of-the-ground-zero-cross"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/washington-post-the-true-story-of-the-ground-zero-cross#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Washington Post: The true story of the Ground Zero Cross"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7037"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7039,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7037\/revisions\/7039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}