Vatican, Pope John Paul II

On Wednesday June 25, 1980, we drove to S. Agnese Outside The Wall, on Via Nomentana, then walked down, down under the church to visit the catacombs. There we met three young ladies from the US, and they rode with us across the city, back to St. Peter’s Square in The Vatican, so we could see Pope John Paul II’s Wednesday afternoon audience. Parking was almost unavailable, but we managed to drive up over the sidewalk, with the front bumper in the park, the RV sitting over the sidewalk, the back bumper in the street, just like everyone else who had parked on this street.

As we stood a long distance from where the Pope would be, an English speaking priest from Czechoslovakia offered us tickets so we could get closer to the pulpit. I did not have a telephoto lens on my camera, so borrowed a set of binoculars from the person in seat next to us, and experimented — and it worked!!

Eleven months later, on May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded in an assassination attempt, right here, while the "Popemobile" was taking him to the podium for this ceremony. He made a full recovery after a three-week stay in the hospital. Then just 12 months later, the Pope went to Portugal’s Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima on May 12, 1982 to give thanks for his recovery. During his visit, a Spanish priest was subdued while attempting to assassinate the Pope with a bayonet. Two assassinate attempts, neither successful.

The man sitting next to the Pope in this photo, is most likely Stanislas Dziwisz. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the Polish archbishop and future Pope, chose Father Dziwisz to work with him in Krakow starting in 1964, and later to join him as private secretary at the Vatican. Pope John Paul relied heavily on the man known as "Don Stanislao," and he has now been named Archbishop of Krakow.