Editing Pope John Paul II (section)

== {{anchor|Assassination}}<!-- Attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II hatnote links here--> Assassination attempts and plots ==
{{Main|Attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II|Juan María Fernández y Krohn|Bojinka Plot}}
As he entered [[St. Peter's Square]] to address an audience on 13 May 1981,<ref>{{cite news |title=1981 Year in Review: Pope John Paul II Assassination (sic) Attempt |url=http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of-1981/Pope-John-Paul-II-Assasination-Attempt/12311754163167-6/ |publisher=United Press International (UPI) |year=1981}}</ref> John Paul II was shot and [[ballistic trauma|critically wounded]] by [[Mehmet Ali Ağca]],<ref name="A&E" />{{sfn|Maxwell-Stuart|2006|p=234}}{{sfn|Dziwisz|2001}} an expert Turkish gunman who was a member of the militant fascist group [[Grey Wolves (organization)|Grey Wolves]].<ref name="SanFrancisco" /> The assassin used a [[Browning Hi-Power|Browning 9&nbsp;mm semi-automatic pistol]],<ref name="upi2" /> shooting the pope in the abdomen and perforating his [[colon (anatomy)|colon]] and [[small intestine]] multiple times.<ref name="Bottum" /> John Paul II was rushed into the Vatican complex and then to the [[Gemelli Hospital]]. On the way to the hospital, he lost consciousness. Even though the two bullets missed his [[superior mesenteric artery]] and [[abdominal aorta]], he lost nearly three-quarters of his blood. He underwent five hours of surgery to treat his wounds.{{sfn|Time Magazine 1982-01-25|p=1}} Surgeons performed a [[colostomy]], temporarily rerouting the upper part of the [[large intestine]] to let the damaged lower part heal.{{sfn|Time Magazine 1982-01-25|p=1}} When he briefly regained consciousness before being operated on, he instructed the doctors not to remove his [[Brown Scapular]] during the operation.<ref name="scapolare" /> One of the few people allowed in to see him at the Gemelli Clinic was one of his closest friends, philosopher [[Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka]], who arrived on Saturday 16 May and kept him company while he recovered from emergency surgery.<ref name="Telegraph 2016">[https://web.archive.org/web/20160216020844/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/12157733/What-really-happened-between-Pope-John-Paul-II-and-his-close-friend-Anna-Teresa-Tymienecka.html What really happened between Pope John Paul II and his close friend, Anna-Teresa Tymienecka?] by Edward Stourton, 15 February 2016, ''The Telegraph''</ref> The pope later stated that the [[Blessed Virgin Mary]] helped keep him alive throughout his ordeal.{{sfn|Maxwell-Stuart|2006|p=234}}{{sfn|Dziwisz|2001}}{{sfn|Bertone|2000–2009}} He said:

<blockquote>"Could I forget that the event in St. Peter's Square took place on the day and at the hour when the first appearance of the Mother of Christ to the poor little peasants has been remembered for over sixty years at [[Our Lady of Fátima|Fátima, Portugal]]? For in everything that happened to me on that very day, I felt that extraordinary motherly protection and care, which turned out to be stronger than the deadly bullet."{{sfn|Pope John Paul II|2005|p=184}}</blockquote>

Ağca was caught and restrained by a nun and other bystanders until police arrived. He was sentenced to [[life imprisonment]]. Two days after Christmas in 1983, John Paul II visited Ağca in prison. John Paul II and Ağca spoke privately for about twenty minutes.{{sfn|Maxwell-Stuart|2006|p=234}}{{sfn|Dziwisz|2001}} John Paul II said, "What we talked about will have to remain a secret between him and me. I spoke to him as a brother whom I have pardoned and who has my complete trust."<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Morrow |first=Lance |date=19 January 1984 |title=Pope John Paul II Forgives His Would-Be Assassin |magazine=Time |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,952295-3,00.html |access-date=4 January 2023 |issn=0040-781X}}</ref>

Numerous theories were advanced to explain the assassination attempt, some of them controversial. One such theory, advanced by [[Michael Ledeen]] and heavily pushed by the United States [[Central Intelligence Agency]] at the time of the assassination but never substantiated by evidence, was that the Soviet Union was behind the attempt on John Paul II's life in retaliation for the pope's support of Solidarity, the Catholic, pro-democratic Polish workers' movement.<ref name="SanFrancisco" /><ref name="ItalianPanel" /> This theory was supported by the 2006 [[Mitrokhin Commission]], set up by [[Silvio Berlusconi]] and headed by {{lang|it|[[Forza Italia]]}} senator [[Paolo Guzzanti]], which alleged that Communist [[Committee for State Security (Bulgaria)|Bulgarian security departments]] were used to prevent the Soviet Union's role from being uncovered, and concluded that [[GRU (Soviet Union)|Soviet military intelligence (''Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije'')]], not the [[KGB]], were responsible.<ref name="ItalianPanel" /> Russian [[Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia)|Foreign Intelligence Service]] spokesman Boris Labusov called the accusation "absurd".<ref name="ItalianPanel" /> The pope declared during a May 2002 visit to Bulgaria that the country's Soviet-bloc-era leadership had nothing to do with the [[assassination attempt]].<ref name="SanFrancisco" /><ref name="ItalianPanel" /> However, his secretary, Cardinal [[Stanisław Dziwisz]], alleged in his book ''A Life with Karol'', that the pope was convinced privately that the former Soviet Union was behind the attack.<ref name="Retire2" /> It was later discovered that many of John Paul II's aides had foreign-government attachments;<ref name="Thomas2000" /> Bulgaria and Russia disputed the Italian commission's conclusions, pointing out that the pope had publicly denied the Bulgarian connection.<ref name="ItalianPanel" />

A second assassination attempt was made on 12 May 1982, just a day before the anniversary of the first attempt on his life, in [[Fátima, Portugal]], when a man tried to stab John Paul II with a [[bayonet]].<ref name="Krohn" /><ref name="CBC2" /><ref name="Reuters3" /> He was stopped by security guards. Stanisław Dziwisz later said that John Paul II had been injured during the attempt but managed to hide a non-life-threatening wound.<ref name="Krohn" /><ref name="CBC2" /><ref name="Reuters3" /> The assailant, a [[traditionalist Catholic]] Spanish priest named [[Juan María Fernández y Krohn]],<ref name="Krohn" /> had been ordained as a priest by Archbishop [[Marcel Lefebvre]] of the [[Society of St. Pius X]] and was opposed to the changes made by the [[Second Vatican Council]], saying that the pope was an agent of Communist Moscow and of the Marxist [[Eastern Bloc]].{{sfn|Hebblethwaite|1995|p=95}} Fernández y Krohn subsequently left the priesthood and served three years of a six-year sentence.<ref name="CBC2" /><ref name="Reuters3" />{{sfn|Hebblethwaite|1995|p=95}} The ex-priest was treated for [[mental illness]] and then expelled from Portugal to become a solicitor in Belgium.{{sfn|Hebblethwaite|1995|p=95}}

The [[Al-Qaeda]]-funded [[Bojinka plot]] planned to kill John Paul II during a visit to the Philippines during World Youth Day 1995 celebrations. On 15 January 1995 a [[suicide bomber]] was planning to dress as a priest and detonate a bomb when the pope passed in his [[motorcade]] on his way to the [[San Carlos Seminary]] in [[Makati]]. The assassination was supposed to divert attention from the next phase of the operation. However, a chemical fire inadvertently started by the cell alerted police to their whereabouts, and all were arrested a week before the pope's visit, and confessed to the plot.<ref name="ThePlot" />

In 2009 [[Jack Koehler]], a journalist and former army intelligence officer, published ''Spies in the Vatican: The Soviet Union's Cold War Against the Catholic Church''.<ref name="Koehler2011" /> Mining mostly East German and Polish secret police archives, Koehler claimed the assassination attempts were "KGB-backed".<ref>''Publishers Weekly'', review of 'Spies in the Vatican', 11 May 2009</ref>