Rome, May 12, 1981. On that day, Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca appeared at Fiumicino Airport (…). Despite his long prison sentence, he will never reveal who ordered this murder and from where hundreds of thousands of dollars funded his long stay in Italy before the assassination, who provided this gun and who ordered him to check in on May 12, 1981 at the Isa Guesthouse at Via Cicerone, near St. Peter’s Square. To this day, we also do not know whether it was just coincidence that he stopped in a hotel with the Arabic equivalent of the name of Jesus. On May 13, 1981, he left the guesthouse around 4 p.m., wearing a British Browning Automatic pistol behind his belt, a nine-millimetre caliber and mingled in a crowd waiting for the Pope’s audience. He chose the right side of the square, near the entrance to the so-called Bronze Gate, next to which the Pope was supposed to pass, as the site of the attack. Today, this site has a commemorative plate.
On that day, around 7 p.m., the Pope gets into a Fiat Campagnola, an ordinary off-road car that Paul VI was already riding in the audience. However, this white terrain did not have a good reputation. It was considered an extremely inappropriate means of transport. Paul VI commissioned only cosmetic alterations and replacement of two hard seats for passengers. However, the jeep, which today stands in Papal garages, was suitable for a mountain trip for scouts rather than a car for the Pope. Therefore, Fiat Campagnola reaches St. Peter’s Square exactly at 5:05 p.m. The Pope, as usual, instructs the driver to go around the square. What was going on in the soul of Ali Agca he will forever keep for himself. This cannot be redone. The crime he will commit in a moment will go down in history as an excellent crime, because despite all the long-standing efforts of the justice system, it will not be possible to explain who stood behind it. The judges will remain helpless in the face that Agca knew that if he attacks the Pope, he would spend the rest of his life in prison. It is clear from the very beginning that the Turkish assassinate will not even have a shadow of the chance to escape from St. Peter’s Square, on which tens of thousands of worshipers are present, but also Vatican gendarmes and policemen are there. He is ready, without any apparent reason, to commit a crime that will also destroy his life, and no one will know why. As the Pope approaches, Ali Agca pulls out a gun and targets his head. It is 5:22 p.m. The shot turns out to be inaccurate, and the bullet hits the nun’s arm. In a panic, Agca aims lower, in the Pope’s stomach, this time he must hit. He presses the trigger.
Andreas Englisch – Healer. Miracles of Saint John Paul II
WAM Publishing House. Jesuit Priests. Krakow 2015
