REMEMBERING the day Mehmet Ali Ağca fired four gunshots at Pope John Paul II in St Peter’s Square 40 years ago, Pope Francis told Polish pilgrims at his General Audience on Wednesday that Pope John Paul II felt “certain he owed his life to Our Lady of Fatima”.
Pope Francis said the event “makes us aware that our lives and the history of the world are in God’s hands”.
Pope John Paul II was seriously wounded in the hail of gunfire as he passed through St Peter’s Square in an open car during the General Audience on Wednesday, 13 May 1981, on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima.
Many pilgrims broke into tears while others prayed for the pope as he was rushed to Gemelli Hospital, where his life was saved during surgery lasting more than five hours.
At his weekly Sunday appointment, four days after he was shot, he led the Regina Coeli as he always did.
Television cameras panned to the empty window he always occupied as his voice was broadcast over a radio.
With a faint voice recorded from his hospital bed, he said, “I pray for the brother who struck me, whom I have sincerely forgiven. United to Christ, Priest and Victim, I offer my sufferings for the Church and for the world.”
He would later go to visit his would-be assassin Mehmet Ali Ağca in prison to forgive and embrace him.
Pope John Paul II was convinced that Mary, in the appearance of Our Lady of Fatima, had personally redirected the bullet that hit him, saving his life.
He gave one of the bullets recovered from the assassination attempt to the bishop in Fatima.
The bishop placed it in the crown of the official image of Our Lady of Fatima at the shrine of Fatima.
“Let’s entrust the Church, ourselves and the whole world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary,” Pope Francis told the pilgrims on the 40th anniversary.
“Let’s pray for peace, for the end of the pandemic, for a spirit of penitence and for our conversion.”
