On 1981-05-13, at 17:17, John Paul II was shot in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.1 He was struck and his white robe was stained with blood.2 The date fell on the sixty-fourth anniversary of the First apparition of Our Lady of Fatima.3
Mehmet Ali Ağca fired three shots using a Browning HP Parabellum pistol, squatting to be sure of hitting his target.45 Bystanders attempted to subdue him and he threatened them with his gun;6 when a young policeman reached him he pressed the trigger again, but the pistol had developed a loading defect.7 The Swiss Guards prevented the crowd from killing Ağca after he was seized.8 He initially denied the shooting and falsely claimed to be a student at the University of Perugia.9
John Paul II was taken by ambulance to the Catholic University hospital ten minutes after receiving first aid beside the basilica.10 Three surgeons operated on him for five hours and twenty minutes; his blood pressure had fallen so low his pulse was barely perceptible.11 His carotid artery escaped damage by only a small margin and no vital organs were hurt.12 His first words on regaining consciousness were “I forgive him."13 He later said he believed the Mother of God had saved him because he had moved his body while handing a little girl back to her parents, causing the bullet to miss his heart.14 He was released from hospital on 1981-08-14.15 According to Italian press reporting on released KGB papers, the KGB gave the Bulgarian Secret Service the original order for the attempt.16 Separately, John Paul II is reported to have believed the Virgin of Fatima saved him from death,17 and to have been aware that 1917-05-13 was the date of the 1917 Fatima Marian apparitions.18 He later placed the bullet that almost killed him into the crown of a statue of Our Lady of Fatima.19
In 1982 John Paul II travelled to Fatima Portugal on what became John Paul II’s 1982 pilgrimage to Fatima, to thank the Mother of God for saving his life.20 He said he had come because a year earlier, on the anniversary of the first apparition, an attempt had been made to assassinate him, which he recognised as a specific call to come.21 During the visit, on 1982-05-12, a man dressed as a priest (Juan Fernández Krohn) pushed into the group near the pope and shouted insults blaming him for the situation of Catholics in Poland, for letting Communism grow stronger, and for the Second Vatican Council.22 His secretary, an American bishop, and security guards protected him with their bodies while Portuguese police arrested the man, who shouted in Spanish “Down with the pope! Death to Communism!” as he was taken away.2324 A decade later, on John Paul II’s second pilgrimage to Fatima (1991-05-12 to 1991-05-13), on the anniversary of both the first apparition and the day his life was saved, John Paul II solemnly repeated the consecration of the world.25
Writers on Fatima have connected the shooting to the Third Secret of Fatima. Michael Hesemann said he considered there could be no better description of the events of 1981-05-13 than the Third Secret’s vision of a pope falling under gunfire.26 According to the same source, when John Paul II read the text of the Third Secret after the assassination attempt, the plan of divine providence became clear to him.27 Joseph Ratzinger, then a cardinal, is reported to have asked whether it was inevitable that John Paul II saw his own fate in the third part of the Fatima Secret when its text was brought to him after the attempt.28