Who would want to kill a pope?
The question raced through my mind on May 13, 1981, when I learned that a Turkish gunman named Mehmet Ali Agca had just shot Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square. This was electrifying news, certain to plunge the Catholic world into gloomy uncertainty and diplomatic chanceries around the globe into a frantic search for answers. One reason for the international tumult was that John Paul II was no ordinary pope.
I was NBC’s diplomatic correspondent at the time, based in Washington. Immediately, I threw myself into the story, calling a number of key sources in the US government, wondering what they knew. Not very much, as it turned out. At the time, everyone in Washington seemed preoccupied with another attempted assassination: Only six weeks earlier, the new American president, Ronald Reagan, had been shot by John Hinckley, Jr. near the Washington Hilton Hotel. Fortunately, Reagan survived but now faced troubling questions about the attempt on John Paul II’s life. Was there a connection? Did this story contain hidden mysteries? Who would want to kill a pope?
In the Vatican, the seriously wounded pope was rushed to the nearby Gemelli Clinic. Five hours of emergency surgery followed, and his doctors were still uncertain whether he’d survive. The gunman, who startled worshippers had seized, was handed over to Vatican police. The many hundreds in St. Peter’s Square suddenly felt lost, robbed of their spiritual leader.
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