Pope John Paul II Secretly Wounded in 1982 Stabbing

[gateley]

(Apologies if this has been posted)

Pope Knifed By Priest Just a Year After Being Shot

The late Pope John Paul was wounded by a knife-wielding priest in 1982, a year after he was shot in St Peter's Square, but the injury was kept secret, his former top aide says in a documentary film.

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz also discloses that when John Paul was unable to pronounce words several days before his death in 2005, he told his aides that if he could not speak any more the time had come for him to die. (snip)

On May 12, 1982, the pope was visiting the shrine city of Fatima in Portugal to give thanks for surviving a first assassination attempt a year earlier on May 13, 1981, when he was shot in St Peter's Square by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca.

A crazed ultra-conservative Spanish priest, Juan Fernandez Krohn, lunged at the pope with a dagger and was knocked to the ground by police and arrested. The fact that the knife actually reached the pope and cut him was not known until now.

"I can now reveal that the Holy Father was wounded. When we got back to the room (in the Fatima sanctuary complex) there was blood," Dziwisz says in the documentary.

The pope carried on with the trip without disclosing his wound.

Krohn was arrested and served several years in a Portuguese prison before being expelled from the country. (snip)

more... (it's about a documentary on JPII that will be airing soon) http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=6041438&page=1

[book_worm]

1. interesting.

[CountAllVotes]

2. so sad

I miss John Paul II. I'd seen him around this time. I guess he didn't let anything stop him either. There is a lesson in this I believe.

:dem:

[gateley]

3. I miss him too. I keep forgetting the current Pope's name and have no

interest in him whatsoever.

John Paul II walked his talk - and he just emanated love and compassion.