- Karam Melhem Karam, Lebanon

Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas from Manila, writing his column in Manila-Online quoted Abp Stanislaw Dziwisz: “I would describe the Holy Father’s miraculous return to life and health as a gift from heaven. The attempted assassination, humanly speaking, has remained a mystery. Neither the trial nor the attacker’s long imprisonment has clarified it. I witnessed the Holy Father’s visit to Ali Agca in prison (on December 28, 1983). The Pope has already forgiven him publicly in his first speech after the attack. On the prisoner’s part I did not hear the words: ‘I ask forgiveness.’ He was only interested in the secret of Fatima.” Dr. Villegas added: “If Pope John Paul II had been killed on May 13, 1981, the world would be completely different from what it is today. Karol Wojtyla, born on May 18, 1920, had a prominent role in the divine plan of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of Mankind, through the intercession of His Heavenly Mother”.

Mr. Melhem Karam, the Editor of “Monday Morning” in Beirut, pondered the consequences of the attack against the Pope: “His health was not helped by the fact that, after the attack, surgeons had to remove half his stomach. It was then that he began to walk on the path of Golgotha, in the words of Jean Guitton who observed in one of his texts on John Paul II: ‘The one we see before us is a soul wearing a white cassock.’

But the Pope never tired of his mission, even after being so gravely wounded. Mr. Stephen Weeke, now Bureau Chief of NBC, recalled his first meeting with John Paul II, during his 1982 pilgrimage to England and Scotland: “John Paul II was then already a heroic figure of global fame. He was young, strong and captivating. He was humble but fearless, and he had launched his moral assault on the Communist dictatorship of Poland.” Mr. Weeke was only 20 years old when he covered the Pope’s visit. But meeting the Holy Father left him with impressive memories for the rest of his life.

What is the whole truth about Agca’s attempt? Can it be unveiled? Recently, when John Paul was near his death, new documents emerged about a plot to assassinate the Pope. Some had been found in the archives of STASI, the infamous East German secret police, while other evidence surfaced in Poland. Both traces lead to Moscow, to the KGB. According to an author of “Wprost”, Mr. Cezary Gmyz, there had been close links between the 4^th Department of the then Polish Interior Ministry (acting against the Church) and the Soviet KGB. The notorious 4^th Department was directly engaged in a so-called “Operation Triangolo” (Operation Triangle), an international provocation aimed to compromise John Paul II. On the Polish side, this provocation was prepared in 1983 by Grzegorz Piotrowski, of the special “D” section of the 4^th Department. Piotrowski was the same officer of SB (secret political police), who directed in 1984 the assassination of Jerzy Popieluszko the Polish priest, proclaimed later blessed by the Pope. “Triangolo” was orchestrated in connection with the KGB. A resident of the Soviet Intelligence, N. Siemaszko, worked in the Polish Ministry’s 4^th Department, probably until the end of the communist regime. Before the parliamentary elections (June 1989), only one week after the end of the Round Table talks between “Solidarity” and the communist government, on the April 11^th 1989, a special delegation of the KGB arrived at the 4^th Department. Soviet spies took to Moscow all documents pertaining to Operation “Triangolo”.

It is very strange that in free Poland, the homeland of John Paul II, no action was taken to examine the cooperation between the Polish communist special services, and the Soviet KGB and other communist secret services (Bulgarian, East German), directed against the Pope. The “Polish Trail”, apart from the “Bulgarian Trail” and the “Turkish Trail”, still remain unexplored. Were Polish communist services involved in the preparation of the assassination attempt against the Pope in 1981? Probably they were. Polish intelligence officers were present in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981 but in what capacity? In the following years, two subsequent assassination attempts against the life of John Paul II had been thwarted in Poland, during his pilgrimages to the homeland, thanks to Polish security officers who protected the high Guest. They were also functionaries of the communist regime.

Now, 24 years after the attempt in St. Peter’s Square, barely a few weeks after the death of the Holy Father, we have a moral obligation to continue the pursuit of truth. Polish people, in Poland and in the whole world, deserve and seek well-founded information about the tragic event which made the whole life of John Paul II, after May 13, 1981, a “path of Golgotha”, a true “Way of the Cross”. God only knows if this unbearable suffering were necessary to lead the late Pope to sanctity. Clearing up the mystery of the plot(s) against the life of John Paul II should not serve a purpose of vengeance. Truth shouldn’t teach us to hate. Truth should help us to understand and forgive, as John Paul II taught us.