Re: The leader of Faithful Roman Catholics
(cont.)
Assassination attempts
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On May 13, 1981, John Paul II was shot and nearly killed by Mehmet Ali Ağca, a Turkish gunman, as he entered St Peter's Square to address an audience. Ağca was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment.
Who commissioned the murder attempt remains controversial. In late March 2005 documents originating from the former Soviet states seemed to indicate that the KGB was responsible for setting up the attack (Deutsche Welle, 2005), although this is disputed. Speculation about the possible motives of the alleged Soviet conspiracy abound; perhaps the Soviets were afraid of the effect of the Polish pope on the stability of its Eastern European Soviet satellites, particularly Poland; other speculation has accused factions in the Vatican, especially the so-called "freemason" faction, opposed to Wojtyła and Opus Dei, of which Cardinal Casaroli was a leading figure
Pastoral trips
Pope John Paul II visiting a synagogue in Rome in April 1983During his reign, Pope John Paul II made more foreign trips (over 100) than all previous popes put together. In total he logged more than 1,167,000 km (725,000 miles). He consistently attracted large crowds on his travels, some among of the largest ever assembled in human history. While some of his trips (such as to the United States and the Holy Land) were to places previously visited by Pope Paul VI ("The Pilgrim Pope"), many others were to places that no pope had ever visited before. Some have argued that he has travelled farther and met more people than any human being in history.
In May, 2001, the Pontiff took a pilgrimage that would trace the steps of his namesake, Saint Paul, across the Mediterranean. Traveling from Greece to Syria to the island of Malta, during this journey he was the first Roman Catholic Pope to enter Greece for more than a thousand years, and was the first ever to visit a Mosque, in Damascus. He visited Umayyad Mosque, where John the Baptist is believed to be interred.
Relations with other religions
Relations with the Jewish people
John Paul II wrote and delivered a number of speeches on the subject of the Church's relationship with Jews, and often paid homage to the victims of the Holocaust in many nations. He was the first pope to have visited Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, in 1979. One of the few popes to have grown up in a climate of flourishing Jewish culture, one of the key components of pre-war Kraków, his interest in Jewish life dated from early youth. His visit to the Synagogue of Rome was the first by a pope in the history of the Catholic Church.
In March 2000, Pope John Paul II went to the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in Israel and touched the holiest shrine of the Jewish people, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, promoting Christian-Jewish reconciliation. The Pope has said that Jews are "our older brothers".
Given the significant difference between Catholic Christianity and Judaism, it should not be surprising that a number of points of dispute exist between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community. A number of issues supported by John Paul II caused dissension within elements of the Jewish community, including:
~How to deal with baptized Jewish children during World War II who were never returned to their Jewish roots
~The beatification of Pope Pius XII, whom many Jewish groups believed did not act correctly during the Holocaust.
~The opening of World War II era Vatican archives
~The beatification of Jews who were converted as infants to Catholicism
Vatican positions on Israeli policy
~The Pope John Paul saw all abortion as murder, while for reasons endangering health, Jews view some abortions as permissible.
Nonetheless, the number of issues that divide Jewish groups and the Vatican have dropped significantly during the last forty years.