A year after the attack on the Pope, another assassin tries
The man came out of the evening shadows, amid pilgrims' candles and prayers, dressed in clerical garb and brandishing a 16-in. bayonet. Just as Pope John Paul II mounted the steps of the Basilica of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal, carrying his own candle toward an altar outside the shrine, the black-clad figure lunged toward him. An alert Portuguese security guard swiftly wrestled the attacker into custody, but not before the man had come within a scant 3 ft. of John Paul. The Pope, indeed, was jostled as other security men pounced on the assailant, but frowning slightly in concern, the Pontiff continued moving up the stairs to circle the altar. Then, unexpectedly, he descended the steps to the site of the incident and lifted his hand in a gesture of benediction. As John Paul gave his blessing, the would-be assassin could be heard still shouting in Spanish as he was led away: "Down with the Pope! Down with Vatican Two!"
The Pope had come to Fátima, ironically, to fulfill a vow of gratitude to the Virgin Mary for having saved his life just a year earlier, when Turkish Assassin Mehmet Ali Agca shot him in St. Peter's Square. That attempt occurred on the very day, May 13, and almost at the same hour that three shepherd children tending their flocks in Fátima claimed to have seen the first of six apparitions of the Virgin, in 1917. To John Paul, his escape from death and his remarkable recovery from his wounds were nothing less than the result of the Blessed Virgin's intervention. "In all that happened to me that day," he told an audience last December, "I have seen the extraordinary maternal protection that showed itself to be more powerful than the homicidal bullets."
Thus, last Thursday morning, when he marked the anniversary with a special Mass before 500,000 pilgrims gathered on the esplanade in front of the shrine, the Pope had a second escape to be grateful for. His words were somber, as if reflecting the violence of the night before as well as the "menace of evil" he saw spreading through the world. He called on the Madonna for deliverance "from famine and war . . . from sin against the life of man from its very beginning . . . from hatred . . . from every kind of injustice in the life of society." He asked for prayers for his upcoming trip to Britain, which is now in danger of being canceled under the cloud of the Falkland Islands conflict, and pleaded for peace between Argentina and Britain, "two Christian nations with very strong Christian traditions."
The pilgrimage to Portugal, which was also an official state visit, had begun in a festive mood in Lisbon the day before, when the Pope moved through cheering throngs in a vintage Rolls-Royce borrowed from an auto museum for the occasion. By the time the open car reached Lisbon's cathedral, it was inches deep in confetti and flower petals that the crowd had showered on John Paul. Later the Pope met in Belem Palace with Portuguese President Antonio Ramalho Eanes.