9/11 hero found relationship with Christ after tragedy, now helps others as deacon
Paul Carris had just gotten off the phone with his manager when he heard a loud roar, which was followed by an impact that rocked his building. It was Sept. 11, 2001, and Carris was on the 71st floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. His life was about to change forever — in more ways than one.
By the end of that fateful day, Carris would be hailed as a hero for helping an ailing colleague walk down 70 flights of stairs to safety. But he never considered himself to be so admirable; in fact, the very idea people would view him as a role model filled him with a rage he could not understand. So, he turned inward, venturing on a spiritual journey that culminated in him strengthening his faith and becoming a deacon for the Archdiocese of Newark.
Today, Carris considers 9/11 a tragedy for all involved. At the same time, he recognizes he would be a much different person if he never experienced it.
“It was a life-changing event,” Carris said. “Everything that happened because of it had a cumulative result of making me realize that being a deacon is my vocation. I had a career as an engineer, and it was a good one. But this is my calling.”
A morning like no other
Immediately after American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower, the building began tilting back and forth so severely Carris expected it to tip over. Once it settled, he recalled some of his coworkers at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey began insisting they should leave the tower, while others stood frozen in shock. Eventually, a manager told everyone to evacuate, and the employees began proceeding to the stairwells. That is when Carris noticed a group of people huddled over Judith Toppin.
Carris did not know Toppin — he only started working at the Port Authority six weeks earlier and had yet to meet all his colleagues — but he could see she needed help. As she later explained in an essay about her experience, Toppin had a multitude of health issues that made it difficult to move quickly, including a lung condition and a heart defibrillator that had just zapped her for exceeding the number of racing heartbeats permitted. As her coworkers debated over whether they should stay to assist her, Carris told them to go — he would help Toppin down the stairs.
To this day, he is unsure why he volunteered.
“I believe it was probably the Holy Spirit that guided me there, but I wouldn’t have known that at the time,” Carris said. “My father was a New York City Emergency Services officer for 34 years. He said sometimes some people will kick into doing something instead of giving into panic. The police are trained to do that, but I don’t have that training, so I don’t know. Something put me there — there’s no conscious explanation as to why.”
Whatever the reason, Carris led Toppin to the 71st floor stairwell and placed his right hand under her left arm while instructing her to hold the railing with her right hand. They then slowly proceeded down the stairs, stopping to rest at each landing and letting people behind them through. At one point, Toppin’s defibrillator went off again, jolting her so hard Carris witnessed her jump an inch off the floor. Yet Carris remained a steadying presence for Toppin, refusing to abandon her even after she begged him to leave so he could make it home to his family.
What does Carris remember from those terrifying moments? Looking back, he said everything was surprisingly mellow.
“That’s the amazing part — everybody remained calm on their way down,” Carris said, recalling that people stopped to share facemasks and water with Toppin and himself. “Looking at it from the outside like you saw on TV, nobody would imagine it could possibly be as calm as it was with everyone cooperating.”
When they reached the 20th floor, however, firefighters urged them to move quickly. By that point, Toppin wrote that her right leg was numb and her left leg was not bending, but Carris would not give up on her. Instead, he told Toppin to swing her left leg forward and drop her right to the next step, promising he would never let her fall. She did so and, after descending 20 more flights amidst rising dust and the constant stench of jet fuel, the duo made it to the building’s lobby.
It had taken Carris and Toppin about an hour and a half to reach the ground floor. Mere minutes after they left, the North Tower collapsed.
By that point, the two were approaching a block west of West Street — stepping over numerous bodies on their way. Upon seeing the tower fall, they ran around the corner of a building just before the resulting smoke and debris blew past them “like a train,” as Carris recalled. After briefly stopping at a triage station, Carris and Toppin eventually found an ambulance that transported them to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Upper Manhattan. They were safe.
But Carris’ ordeal was far from over.
Struggling with rage
Shortly after 9/11, Toppin — who died a few years ago — wrote and shared her aforementioned essay titled “Angels Walk Among Us,” which described her rescue in harrowing detail. The widely circulated piece also heaped praise upon Carris, who she called her “angel.”
“God sent me a courageous and caring man to lead me out of the destruction and carnage created by the cowards among us,” Toppin wrote, adding “he made all of the right decisions at exactly the right times… Thank you, Paul. You’ll stay in my heart forever. I am forever grateful.”
Most people would be pleased to read such flattery about themselves, but Carris did not feel that way. On the contrary, Toppin’s words only made him angry.
“She wrote about this guy who did everything right, and at that point in my life it made me reflect on the fact that I had not done everything right,” Carris said, explaining that he “wasn’t necessarily a good Catholic” even though he had always been heavily involved in the Church. “That contradiction between what she wrote and what I started reflecting on in my life created this rage.”
That rage came to a head one day when he picked his daughter up from a high school softball game. His daughter had given him wrong directions, causing him to drive all over Bergen County, so he lashed out when he finally found her. But after seeing the expression on her face, Carris realized something was very wrong with himself. He apologized to his daughter and later drove to his church — Corpus Christi Parish in Hasbrouck Heights — where he started crying in one of the pews.
A parish priest found Carris and suggested he come for a counseling session, at which the priest recommended Carris schedule an appointment with Father James Patrick Kelly, a Franciscan friar who was also a practicing therapist. Carris started seeing Father Kelly, and over nine months they worked together to find the source of Carris’ anger and how he could address it. These sessions were difficult but helpful, Carris said. Yet he still struggled.
Then a suggestion from his pastor changed everything.
A faith journey begins
In 2002, Monsignor Lewis Papera decided to get Corpus Christi Parish involved with Cursillo, an apostolic movement meant to train Catholic lay people to be leaders for the Church. The now-retired Monsignor Papera said he thought Carris would be perfect for the three-day retreat because he was already an outstanding parishioner, being a choir member and youth sports coach. He never realized just how much of an impact the program would have on Carris.
“I really had a transformation on my Cursillo weekend,” Carris said. “The Cursillo weekend was cathartic. It was so powerful and hit me in such a strong way.”
Cursillo made Carris understand he lacked a true relationship with Christ, he explained, and the retreat’s many discussions led by clergy and lay leaders taught him how to build one. He said the experience fundamentally changed him, to the point his friends commented that he looked visibly different during his first day back at work. Even Father Kelly told him he no longer needed therapy.
“He said, ‘Paul, you’ve been battling with me in your head for nine months. Whatever happened on that weekend (caused your struggle) to drop down to your heart, and things don’t have to make sense in your heart… Nothing has really changed, but you’ve changed,’” Carris recalled.
Moving forward, Carris put faith at the center of his life rather than compartmentalizing it like he had before 9/11. He read daily reflections, subscribed to the Magnificat religious magazine, and attended multiple spiritual retreats. He took on a leadership role in the Cursillo movement and immersed himself in charity work. At one point, he used his engineering knowledge to help Franciscan sisters construct a two-story food pantry in Fairview.
Eventually Carris heard the Archdiocese of Newark had relaunched its diaconate program, so he applied and entered in 2007. After several years of reinforcing what he learned spiritually after his trauma, Carris was ordained a permanent deacon for the Archdiocese in 2011 — 10 years after 9/11 sent him on his faith journey. Toppin and several other Port Authority survivors of the World Trade Center attacks attended his ordination.
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The life of a deacon
Today Carris serves as a deacon at Corpus Christi Parish, where he has been a parishioner since 1982. There he handles everything from baptisms to weddings to funerals. And because he has been at the parish for so long, he ministers to generations of families he has built relationships with through the years, from great grandparents to great grandchildren.
“I’ve kind of become the institutional memory for the parish,” said Carris, who retired after a 41-year career as an engineer in 2018 so he would have more time for his diaconate work. “On one hand, it’s a blessing. On the other hand, it can be very tiring. But it feels right. As exhausted as I might get sometimes, it always feels good to give people a connection to the Church in a way that they might not have had.”
This unique connection is evident in the case of Carris’ friend, Vincent II. When his son Vincent III was getting married, Vincent II asked Carris to witness the wedding. Later, he asked Carris to baptize his grandson, Vincent IV. Then, after his father Vincent I died, Vincent II asked Carris to preside at the funeral.
“So, I’ve ministered to four generations of the family,” Carris said.
And that is not the only example of his longevity. For the first time, Carris will soon officiate the wedding of a woman who used to be in his youth ministry program — and he suspects she will not be the last.
All this hard work has not gone unappreciated. Monsignor Papera, the first of three pastors Carris served under, said he loved working with Carris until his 2014 retirement because Carris is a natural leader whose organizational skills complemented his own abilities perfectly. In fact, he said one of the most exciting moments of his 55 years as a priest came when he partnered with Carris to launch an adult faith formation event series that attracted hundreds of people.
“He is just a gift to the parish,” Monsignor Papera said. “He’s intelligent. He communicates well with people. It was just wonderful to work with him.”
Furthermore, Monsignor Papera said Carris’ spiritual journey serves as an example from which his parishioners can learn.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, and Paul was made poor through the tragedy of 9/11,” said Monsignor Papera, who added it was a joy to watch Carris’ faith evolve. “He realized we can’t be our own savior. He turned his life to God, and that’s when God can work.”
Carris’ longtime friend Ken Bransfield, who was a lay leader at the Cursillo weekend that changed Carris’ life, agrees that Carris has found his calling as a deacon. Bransfield said his friend’s homilies are “phenomenal,” and the lessons he learned from 9/11 are helpful for anyone going through a hard time. In particular, Bransfield said he often thinks of Carris’ advice to look for God in every situation and to step outside one’s comfort zone to get closer to Him.
“He’s an inspirational guy,” Bransfield said, adding he has shared Toppin’s essay describing Carris’ heroism to over 100 people. “People always say, ‘What would Jesus do?’ Well, I also say, ‘What would Deacon Paul do?’”
Yet Carris’ admirability extends beyond his religious life, according to Bransfield. He said Carris is an amazing friend, too. For instance, when the deacon learned Bransfield’s wife needed rides to her cancer treatments in faraway Somerset County, he offered 22 dates he could drive her there.
“I’m blessed to know the man,” Bransfield said. “I just turned 80… but I tell people, ‘When I grow up, I want to be like Paul.’”
Reflecting on the past
It has been more than 20 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center tragically ended the lives of 2,753 people and drastically reshaped Carris’ own. Today, the deacon rarely thinks about that fateful morning. He is a completely different man now, he explained, so he would prefer not to dwell on the person he used to be.
When he does speak about his experience, Carris hopes people will learn from his mistake. God is not meant to be compartmentalized, he stressed.
“My problem was my faith and my life were two different things,” Carris said, explaining that he behaved differently when he was outside church. “That’s not what our faith is meant to be. Our faith is meant to be an integral part of who we are. And if it is, you can carry it with you in every environment.”
Featured image: Deacon Paul Carris (left) serves with Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R., Archbishop of Newark, during the 120th Anniversary Mass of Corpus Christi Parish in Hasbrouck Heights in 2018. (Photo courtesy of Deacon Paul Carris)
