The Attempted Assassination Of The Pope

[Lil Red]

is there any books available that talk specifically of the events leading up to the attempted assassination of the Pope, during, and after?

[CatherineM]

He talked about it in one of his books, about how Mary guided the bullet around his vital parts. Can't remember which one, and mine are in storage, so I can't look it up.

[Lil Red]

that's the thing - i'm looking for a book that deals specifically (and only) with that incident, not in a roundabout way or an off-hand manner.

[MithLuin]

George Weigel deals with it in his biography of JPII, of course.

[CatherineM]

"A Life with Karol: My Forty-Year friendship with the Man who became Pope" by Stanislaw Dziwisz has a chapter or two on it.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='MithLuin' date='03 August 2010 - 11:29 AM' timestamp='1280860154' post='2151547']
George Weigel deals with it in his biography of JPII, of course.
[/quote]
i can't remember the name of that book.

[quote name='CatherineM' date='03 August 2010 - 11:29 AM' timestamp='1280860176' post='2151548']
"A Life with Karol: My Forty-Year friendship with the Man who became Pope" by Stanislaw Dziwisz has a chapter or two on it.
[/quote]
thanks!

[MithLuin]

Oh, duh, sorry. 'A Witness to Hope'

Here is the [url=http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0513.html]NY Times report[/url] from the day it happened. (The feast of Our Lady of Fatima, of course, was not a wise choice on the assassin's part )

Here's a video of the ABC news report from the day it happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34hZPisnIA0

The 'personal secretary' mentioned in the news report is likely Stanislaw Dziwisz, the author of the memoir [b]CatherineM[/b] suggested. The name of the would-be Turkish assassin is Mehmet Ali Ağca. An Irish secretary was also present. He had been secretary to Paul VI, and briefly to John Paul I, so he had recently seen two popes die. Apparently, JPII looked at him and said something like, "This will not end in death." To reassure him. Because, you know, even when he got [i]*shot*[/i], he was more concerned about other people. Awesome pope!

The Italians concluded it was a Soviet (ie, KGB-planned) attack:
[quote]Italy's Mitrokhin Commission led by Senator Paolo Guzzanti concluded that Soviet Union President Leonid Brezhnev ordered the Bulgarian and East German secret agencies to assassinate Pope John Paul II because Pope John Paul II was against communism. Mehmet Ali Ağca attempted the assassination on May 13, 1981. The inquiry found that Mr. Ağca was trained by the Soviet secret service in Yemen. "We are sure that the secret services of the former Soviet Union have planned the attack against the pope," Senator Guzzanti told New Europe Radio.

http://www.culturalcatholic.com/PopeJohnPaulII.htm[/quote]

The book where JPII talked of this experience himself is [i]Memory and Identity[/i].

While that was the only time the pope was actually shot, there were other attempts/plots on his life. It's a tough job!