Pope had 'strange feeling' he'd survive shooting

updated 7:19 a.m. ET Feb. 18, 2005

WARSAW, Poland - Pope John Paul II for the first time publicly described the moments after he was gravely wounded in 1981, saying in his new book that he was fearful and in pain but had “a strange feeling of confidence” he would live.

In the book, a copy of which was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, the Polish pontiff also said his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, “understood that above his power — the power of shooting and killing — there is a greater power.”

In “Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums,” the pope said he remembered being rushed to the hospital but didn’t recall much of what happened after he arrived because “I was almost on the other side.”

“Oh, my Lord! This was a difficult experience. I woke up the next day, around noon,” John Paul wrote.

The book, his fifth, is essentially a transcript of conversations he had in Polish with his close friends political philosopher Krzysztof Michalski and the late Rev. Jozef Tischner in 1993 at his summer residence near Rome. It will be published Feb. 23 in Italy by Rizzoli, which also plans an English version soon.

In it, the pope reflected on a range of topics and broadly compares abortion to the Holocaust, saying both derived from governments in conflict with God’s laws.

'Strange feeling of confidence'
The most personal section of the book contains John Paul’s recollections of how his faith sustained him after being shot in the abdomen by the Turkish gunman on May 13, 1981, while riding in an open car in St. Peter’s Square.

“Yes, I remember that journey to the hospital,” he wrote. “I remained conscious for some time after. I had a feeling that I would I would survive. I was in pain, I had reason to be afraid, but I had this strange feeling of confidence.”

Before reaching the hospital, he told his personal secretary, the Rev. Stanislaw Dziwisz, now an archbishop, that “I forgive the assassin,” according to the book.

John Paul recalled his belief that the bullet was steered away from vital organs by divine intervention — which he has credited to the Virgin Mary of Fatima. Three shepherd children say the Virgin Mary appeared to them in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917 and made several predictions. Church officials said in 2000 that one of them foretold the assassination attempt on John Paul.

“Agca knew how to shoot and he shot with confidence, with perfection. But it was just as if someone guided this bullet,” the pope said.

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