Before he started his general audience, Pope Leo XIV stepped out of his popemobile on May 13 and walked over to pray beside a plaque marking the spot where history took a turn that shocked the world 45 years before. St John Paul II was shot precisely there on May 13, 1981—a day of the…
45 years on, attempted assassination of St John Paul II recalled as turning point in history
St John Paul II sits with his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, in Rome’s Rebibbia Prison in 1983. Photo: OSV News/Arturo Mari, L’Osservatore Romano.