The Divine Plan by Paul Kengor

Author:Paul Kengor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ORD)
Published: 2019-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

BLEEDING TO DEATH

The second would-be assassin is Mehmet Ali Agca.

On May 13—only six weeks since Reagan’s shooting—Agca stands in the crowd in Saint Peter’s Square. John Paul II, riding in the back of his slow-moving Popemobile, waves to the huge crowd, occasionally shaking hands and kissing babies.

The twenty-three-year-old Agca carries a 9-millimeter semiautomatic. When the pope comes within a few yards of him, the trained assassin lifts the gun and fires four shots.

He finds his target.

John Paul II collapses. “Mary, my mother; Mary, my mother,” he says.

The Popemobile races out of Saint Peter’s Square, and security transfers the pope to an ambulance. Rome’s traffic becomes almost impassable, but the ambulance finally makes it to Gemelli Hospital.

By now, the pope is barely conscious. He asks a nurse, “How could they do it?” Then he loses consciousness.

The situation looks dire. The hospital rushes the pope into the operating room. “Blood pressure 80, 70, still falling,” a doctor calls out. John Paul II’s heartbeat is barely detectable.

Father Dziwisz, who caught the pope in his arms after the shooting, gives last rites as the pontiff lies on the operating table.

The doctors begin emergency surgery. The chief surgeon finds “blood everywhere.” The procedure will last some five hours as the doctors try desperately to stop the hemorrhaging and close multiple wounds.2

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