Prayed for

Pope John Paul II a second time I would like to share one significant happening which my wife and I were witness to on May 13, 1981 and was brought vividly to mind as we watched the news about Pope John Paul II dying

We were present in St. Peter’s Square, awaiting the arrival of Pope John Paul II as he began his journey through the waiting crowd. While we waited I gazed around at the crowd gathered there in the square, and I noticed a young man, standing by himself in the crowd. His clothing was rather wrinkled and his appearance was somewhat unkempt and the thought crossed my mind that this man was quite out of place in this crowd, totally alone, and I mentioned it to my wife. Her response at that moment was "There doesn’t seem to be much security around the pope."

We went back to join our tour group to watch the pope pass by in his car.  Moments later I heard "popping" sounds and saw the pigeons on the sculptures atop the Vatican fly from their perches.

My first thought was fireworks but then the screams started about 60 feet from where we were standing and people began to run in all directions and some yelled "the pope has been shot."

The situation then became very confused and our tour guide got us back to our bus and we were able to leave. I never saw the young man again until I picked up an Italian language newspaper at our Rome hotel the next morning and saw the picture of the same man; the same man who shot the pope: Mehmet Ali Agca.

We prayed for Pope John Paul II then, as we did again on April 2, 2005.

Dave and Ginny Wallace

Westlake Village