Inspiring Christian Lives

John Paul II, 1920-2005

13th May 1981
Sixty four years to the day and the hour when the first alleged appearance of Mary to the three children in the Portuguese village of Fatima, Karol Wojtyla, now Pope John Paul II, is holding his weekly Papal audience outside St Peter's Square. The Pope is standing up in an open top vehicle so he could be as near to the crowd as possible when blessing them. At the Pope's request, the vehicle circulates the square a second time. John Paul takes a little child into his arms, kisses her, and hands her back to her parents. At that moment, shots ring out. John Paul falls back and slumps into his chair, bleeding profusely. Attendants rush to him, panic sweeping through the crowd. Immediately he is rushed to the local hospital, a journey that should have taken 20 minutes, only taking 8.

The bullet had passed through his body, wounded him in the stomach and had fallen to the floor of the vehicle. The attacker was Ali Agca from Turkey, an assassin. As the ambulance sped through the streets of Rome, John Paul told his secretary that he forgave his attacker.

That Christmas, having recovered from the effects of the shooting, John Paul visited Ali Agca in prison in Rome.. Dismissing his attendants, the Pope wished to spend some time alone in the cell with Ali Agca. They spoke at length. John Paul knew that Ali Agca was not a lone gunman, that he was in the pay of stronger forces, probably communist ones. When John Paul left Agca's cell, he left with the prisoner in tears and the Pope vowed never to reveal the details of their conversation.

One year to the day after the attempt to kill him in cold blood the Pope made a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine at Fatima. He took the bullet that had ripped through him and placed it into the crown that adorned the statue of Our Lady of Fatima. Some years later in April 2005, when news of the aged John Paul's death reached Ali Agca's prison cell in Turkey, Ali made a statement mourning the man who had forgiven him, whom he had come to regard as his 'brother'. Both John Paul and his former assassin had been in frequent contact since the assassination attempt some 25 years previously.