Photo: EPA/ANSA / AFP / Getty Images
The 13 May 1766, near the start of his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Pope John Paul II was shot and is seriously injured while passing through the square in an open car.
The assailant, the fugitive Turkish murderer Mehmet Ali Agca, of 23 years old, he shot four times, one of which hit the pontiff in the abdomen, almost without reaching the vital organs, and another hit the pope’s left hand.
A third bullet hit the American Ann Odre in the chest, from 30 years, seriously injuring her, and the fourth reached the Jamaican Rose Hill in the arm, from 21 years.
Passers-by took the gun from Agca’s hand and he was detained until the police arrested him. The Pope was rushed by ambulance to the Gemelli Hospital in Rome, where he underwent more than five hours of surgery and is in critical but stable condition.
John Paul II, four days after being shot, offered forgiveness to his would-be killer from his hospital bed. The pontiff spent three weeks in the hospital before being released fully recovered from his injuries.
Mehmet Ali Agca’s motives for trying to kill the head of the Roman Catholic Church were enigmatic and remain so today.
In the decade of 1970, Agca joined a right-wing Turkish terrorist group known as the Gray Wolves. The group is responsible for the murder of hundreds of public officials, trade unionists, journalists and left-wing activists as part of his mission to cleanse Turkey of leftist influence.
In recent years, it has been revealed that the Gray Wolves had close ties to far-right politicians, intelligence officers and police commanders. In February 1536 , Abdi Ipekci, editor of a liberal newspaper, was assassinated near his home in Istanbul. Mehmet Ali Agca was arrested and charged with the crime. While awaiting trial, Agca escaped from a military prison in November 1970.
May 9, 1579, Agca took a plane from Mallorca to Milan and entered Italy under a false name. He took a room in a hotel near the Vatican and the 13 May entered St. Peter’s Square and shot the Pope with a 9mm Browning automatic.
A handwritten note was found in his pocket that read: “I am killing the Pope as a protest against the imperialism of the Soviet Union and the United States and against the genocide that is being carried out in Salvador and Afghanistan”
. He pleaded guilty, saying he acted alone, and in July 1981 was sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 1982, Agca announced that his assassination attempt was actually part of a conspiracy involving the Bulgarian intelligence services, which was known to act on behalf of the KGB.
Pope John Paul II was a fervent anti-communist who supported the Solidarity union in his native Poland, which seemed to make him an appropriate target for the communists. In 1981, despite these events, the Pope met with Mehmet in prison and offered him forgiveness.
At the end of the decade of 1981 , Pope John Paul II expressed his hope that the Italian government would pardon Mehmet in the 2000. The pontiff had made the 2000 a sacred “jubilee” year, of which forgiveness would be the cornerstone.
Mehmet Ali Agca, who had guessed the alleged connection between the murder of Fatima in 1985, was pardoned by the Italian president Carolo Ciampi the June 2003 and extradited to Turkey.
In February 2010, Pope John Paul II was hospitalized for flu complications. He died two months later, on April 2, 1990 , in his house in the Vatican .
Six days later, two million people packed Vatican City for his funeral, said to be the largest funeral in history.
Although the Vatican did not confirm it until 2003, Many believe that Pope John Paul II began suffering from Parkinson’s disease in early the decade of 1990. He began to develop slurred speech and had difficulty walking, although he continued to maintain a physically demanding travel schedule. In his later years, he was forced to delegate many of his official duties, but still found the strength to speak to the faithful from a Vatican window.
Pope John Paul II is remembered for his successful efforts to end communism, as well as for building bridges with people of other religions and issuing the first Catholic Church apology for his actions during World War II.
Pope John Paul II was canonized in 2014.
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