John Paull II nearly assassinated 30 years ago today

Keylem wrote: »

The shooting of the Blessed JP II was foretold in the 3rd secret of Fatima (1917), it was also the Feast Day of Our Lady Of Fatima that he was shot.

http://www.romereports.com/palio/30th-Anniversary-of-John-Paul-IIs-Assasination-Attempt-The-letters-the-attacker-sent-to-Joseph-Ratzinger-english-4121.html

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Not that I'm up on such things, but Keylem's post mentioned that the shooting was predicted.

::Edit::

Just did a quick google on the "3rd Secret of Fatima assassination" and it appears as if death is predicted.

As regards the passage about the Bishop dressed in white, that is, the Holy Father—as the children immediately realized during the “vision”—who is struck dead and falls to the ground, Sister Lucia was in full agreement with the Pope's claim that “it was a mother's hand that guided the bullet's path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death” (Pope John Paul II, Meditation from the Policlinico Gemelli to the Italian Bishops, 13 May 1994).

[...]

...the future is not in fact unchangeably set, and the image which the children saw is in no way a film preview of a future in which nothing can be changed. Indeed, the whole point of the vision is to bring freedom onto the scene and to steer freedom in a positive direction. The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed future. Its meaning is exactly the opposite: it is meant to mobilize the forces of change in the right direction. Therefore we must totally discount fatalistic explanations of the “secret”, such as, for example, the claim that the would-be assassin of 13 May 1981 was merely an instrument of the divine plan guided by Providence and could not therefore have acted freely, or other similar ideas in circulation. Rather, the vision speaks of dangers and how we might be saved from them.

Onesimus wrote: »

This is why Our Lady of Fatima tells us that praying the rosary and fasting much can prevent world wars. But if we don't comply with that invitation of Our Lady then wars and disasters will certainly befall us.

georgieporgy wrote: »

it drives out devils so why not prevent wars?

Baggio1 wrote: »

I still hold that it is the present pope that was being foretold, its interesting that only a week or 2 into his pntificate - in one of his sermons/speeches he said "pray for me for when the wolves come for me" he has a certain knowledge of what must come.
Um the devil doesnt exist?? well Christ and all; the church people down the century say he does, and many of us have had experiences where we felt his evil about us, all those who dont believe are in for a rude awakening...

Thus we come finally to the third part of the “secret” of Fatima which for the first time is being published in its entirety. As is clear from the documentation presented here, the interpretation offered by Cardinal Sodano in his statement of 13 May was first put personally to Sister Lucia. Sister Lucia responded by pointing out that she had received the vision but not its interpretation. The interpretation, she said, belonged not to the visionary but to the Church. After reading the text, however, she said that this interpretation corresponded to what she had experienced and that on her part she thought the interpretation correct. In what follows, therefore, we can only attempt to provide a deeper foundation for this interpretation, on the basis of the criteria already considered.

[...]

In the Via Crucis of an entire century, the figure of the Pope has a special role. In his arduous ascent of the mountain we can undoubtedly see a convergence of different Popes. Beginning from Pius X up to the present Pope, they all shared the sufferings of the century and strove to go forward through all the anguish along the path which leads to the Cross. In the vision, the Pope too is killed along with the martyrs. When, after the attempted assassination on 13 May 1981, the Holy Father had the text of the third part of the “secret” brought to him, was it not inevitable that he should see in it his own fate? He had been very close to death, and he himself explained his survival in the following words: “... it was a mother's hand that guided the bullet's path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death” (13 May 1994). That here “a mother's hand” had deflected the fateful bullet only shows once more that there is no immutable destiny, that faith and prayer are forces which can influence history and that in the end prayer is more powerful than bullets and faith more powerful than armies.

[...]

And so we come to the final question: What is the meaning of the “secret” of Fatima as a whole (in its three parts)? What does it say to us? First of all we must affirm with Cardinal Sodano: “... the events to which the third part of the ‘secret' of Fatima refers now seem part of the past”. Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an object of mere curiosity. What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on the text of the “secret”: the exhortation to prayer as the path of “salvation for souls” and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.

Morbert wrote: »

I'm getting a strong sense of having one's cake and eating it.

branie wrote: »

Hard to believe isn't it?

PDN wrote: »

So, let's get this straight.

The prophecy was that at an unspecified point in the future a bishop dressed in white would be killed by a group of soldiers shooting him with bullets and arrows while he was on his knees at the foot of a big cross. And the fulfilment of this was that a Pope was shot by a civilian lunatic, while standing upright (not at the foot of a big cross), and didn't die.

Is that about right?