(2 of 2)
The Portuguese doubtless were relieved that the attack on the Pope at Fátima came not from one of their own but from a visiting Spaniard, Juan Fernández y Krohn, 32. Police investigators soon confirmed that Fernández was, as he had appeared to be, a priest—but an archconservative one. He was ordained at the seminary of Ecône in Switzerland, the traditionalist bastion of French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a diehard opponent of the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), especially its modernization of the 16th century Latin Mass. Even Lefebvre, however, was not conservative enough for Fernández, who broke with the Ecône faction to join a French group called the Sedevacantistes. The group's name derives from its basic tenet: that the See of Peter has been vacant since the 1958 death of Pope Pius XII, whom they consider the last orthodox Pope. Fernández may face a high penalty for acting on his beliefs: he was formally arraigned in Lisbon on a charge of attempted murder. A conviction could bring him 15 to 20 years in prison.
By Friday John Paul was acting as if the attack had never occurred. Visiting the agricultural community of Vila Viçosa 90 miles east of Lisbon, in a stronghold of grass-roots Communism where dirt-poor farm laborers seized estates in the wake of the 1974 revolution, the Pontiff issued a rousing call for "fundamental human rights" and better living conditions for rural workers. Afterward, he stepped out into the crowd, pushing through a tight police cordon to shake hands. At one point he beckoned to a cluster of men and women wearing broad-brimmed straw hats and blankets draped over their shoulders. Security broke down completely. John Paul was engulfed in a sea of peasants.
That is as he wants it. Before him lay yet another day in Portugal, including a visit to the strife-ridden city of Oporto. And beyond that there would be other trips and other potentially threatening situations. But John Paul refuses to stay aloof from the people he wants to meet, despite his own awareness of danger. "This is not the first attempt on the life of the Pope," he confided to an old friend from Poland after the Fátima attack. " Nor will it be the last." —By Mayo Mohs. Reported by Martha de la Cal and Wilton Wynn/Fátima