The next time Wałęsa would see John Paul II would be “in an entirely different situation,” as he wrote in his memoirs.39
The Polish situation heated up again as John Paul prepared to leave for his February 1981 Asian pilgrimage. A ten-day strike in Bielsko-Biała ended on February 6 with the removal of the provincial governor and three of his aides.40 Three days later, amid continuing unrest over the government’s refusal to recognize Rural Solidarity, the farmers’ attempt to participate in the national reform movement, Defense Minister General Wojciech Jaruzelski was named premier of Poland, the head of the government, and appealed for a ninety-day strike-free period. That same day, workers began a general strike in Jelenia Góra. A brief ray of sunshine in the ever-darkening Polish economic picture came on February 27, when Western nations agreed to reschedule Poland’s external debt, but the political pressure on Poland’s communist leaders increased less than a week later. First Secretary Kania and Premier Jaruzelski were summoned to Moscow to meet with virtually the entire Soviet Politburo on March 4.
Three months after backing down from a Soviet military solution to the threat posed by Solidarity, the Soviet leadership had evidently decided that there must be a Polish-imposed solution. Solidarity must go, and the preferred option now was the imposition of martial law by the Polish regime, which would take the international censure to follow. In Jaruzelski, whom the Soviets trusted completely, they believed they had the man for the job.41
Two weeks later, another crisis exploded in Bydgoszcz after the SB severely beat Solidarity leaders. A four-hour national strike paralyzed the entire country on March 27, 1981, as tens of millions of Poles defied the regime in the largest protest against a communist government in east central Europe’s post-war history. A general strike of indeterminate length in support of Rural Solidarity and to demand punishment of those responsible for the beatings in Bydgoszcz was set for March 31. Workers prepared to occupy their factories, and concerns about a Soviet invasion resurfaced as the “Soyuz 81” Warsaw Pact military maneuvers began around Poland’s borders.*
On March 28, John Paul sent a message to Cardinal Wyszyński that urged continued dialogue rather than a confrontation on March 31. There could be no national renewal without the government’s agreement to abide by the “principles [that had been] established by mutual agreement last autumn.” As for the neighbor to the east, the Pope continued to insist that “Poles have the undeniable right to solve their problems by themselves, with their own efforts.” Once again, he knelt spiritually with the Primate “before the image of Our Lady of Jasna Góra, given to us ‘for the defense of our nation,’ and once again I entrust to her this difficult and important moment in the life of our common country….”43
The Pope’s message was reinforced by a personal plea for restraint from the Primate to the members of Solidarity’s National Coordinating Committee, whom Cardinal Wyszyński (already gravely ill with cancer) called to his residence on March 28. Wyszyński had been a firm supporter of Rural Solidarity, but he believed the national interest required that the general strike not take place as scheduled.44 On March 29, the Soviet news agency Tass turned up the pressure with a mendacious report that Solidarity was planning a counterrevolutionary coup d’etat, setting up roadblocks, planning the occupation of communications centers, intimidating the police, and so forth. That same night, a government representative showed Cardinal Wyszyński posters that had already been printed of the impending martial law declaration.45
On March 30, Wałęsa and the Solidarity leadership agreed to suspend the March 31 strike after reaching a compromise agreement with the government. There would be an investigation into the Bydgoszcz beatings, and those responsible would be punished. Rural Solidarity was not recognized immediately, but the government agreed to act as if it were until the formal registration process was completed. Wałęsa was immediately accused of selling out, and several members of the national Solidarity leadership resigned.46 Though the “Soyuz 81” military maneuvers the Soviet Union was then conducting around Poland’s borders were most likely a Soviet bluff, the threat of Polish-imposed martial law seems to have been real. It was certainly assumed to be real by John Paul II and the Primate, and they acted accordingly.47
On April 2, Cardinal Wyszyński met the leadership of Rural Solidarity and told the union members that “Solidarity…has authority, so we can say that besides the authority of the Party there is also social authority in Poland.” The time would come, he concluded, when “socio-economic demands will not be the only ones achieved by this massive movement….”48 Leonid Brezhnev agreed. The counterrevolution in Poland was clearly under way. The Soviet Politburo had met the same day, in a session featuring blistering criticism of the Polish comrades. In its wake, Kania and Jaruzelski were summoned to a meeting with KGB head Yuri Andropov and Soviet Defense Minister Dimitri Ustinov, held the next night in a railway car parked on a spur near the city of Brest. Over the course of a six-hour meeting that ended at 3 A.M. on April 4, the Poles were pressed to impose martial law. Jaruzelski later claimed that the Soviets threatened military intervention. In any event, the Poles convinced Andropov and Ustinov that they were in sufficient control of the situation, and would take the actions needed at what they judged to be the appropriate time.49 A week later, on April 10, the Polish parliament banned strikes for two months.
The spring 1981 crisis in Poland seemed to have receded. On April 26, John Paul II traveled to Bergamo and Sotto il Monte, the home of Pope John XXIII, for ceremonies marking the centenary of the late pope’s birth. His sermon at the memorial Mass in Sotto il Monte, attended by many of Angelo Roncalli’s relatives, praised John XXIII as “truly a man sent by God,” who had “left us an immensely rich and precious heritage” in his deep spirituality and in the work of the Second Vatican Council.50 The homily also cited John XXIII’s concern for family life; two weeks later, on May 9, Pope John’s third successor gave concrete form to that shared concern by establishing the Pontifical Council for the Family as a permanent office of the Roman Curia. Four days later, on May 13, John Paul planned to begin a new series of general audiences to mark the ninetieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, the historic encyclical of Leo XIII that was the first chapter in modern Catholic social doctrine. He had concluded the second part of his meditations on the theology of the body on April 29 and May 6 with a catechesis on the ethical responsibilities of artists portraying the mystery of the human body, and a humanistic critique of pornography.
Now, he was about to be confronted by another form of obscenity.
THE MARK OF CAIN
Teresa Heydel Życzkowska and her husband, longtime members of Karol Wojtyła’s Środowisko, had come to Rome in May 1981 to visit their old friend. They had attended a Mass celebrated by the Pope in the Vatican Gardens on May 9, and another Mass for a Jagiellonian University delegation on Tuesday, May 12. Despite the tensions in Poland, the reunion with Wujek had been a happy one, and the ?yczkowskis were looking forward to the Pope’s general audience, scheduled for 5 P.M. on May 13 in St. Peter’s Square.
John Paul II lunched that day with friends, Professor Jérôme Lejeune and his wife. Lejeune, a distinguished French geneticist who had identified the chromosomal abnormality that causes Down’s Syndrome, was a leader in the international pro-life movement.51 At 5 P.M., precisely on schedule, the small Popemobile, a jeep, drove through the Archway of the Bells and into the square with a smiling John Paul II standing in the back greeting the crowd. The custom was to make a circuit or two of the square before driving the Pope to the sagrato, the raised platform in front of the basilica, from which he would address the crowd. The jeep drove slowly along a pathway that had been created by wooden barriers, over which people would often hold their small children for the Pope to pick up and bless. He had just returned a little girl to her parents and was driving toward the Bronze Doors of the Apostolic Palace when, at 5:13 P.M., Teresa Życzkowska, standing on the other side of the vast open space in front of the basilic
a, heard something peculiar. Hundreds of pigeons had suddenly flown into the evening air. A fraction of a second later, thanks to the peculiar acoustics of the square, she knew the reason why.
Standing behind the first row of pilgrims at one of the wooden railings, Mehmet Ali Agca had just fired two shots at the Pope from a Browning 9-mm semi-automatic pistol. John Paul was struck in the abdomen and fell backward into the arms of his secretary, Monsignor Dziwisz. The image of the inert Pope, flashed around the world later that day, instantly reminded millions of people of artistic renderings of Christ being taken from the cross.52 Sister Emilia Ehrlich, in the square for the audience, remembered a line from Wojtyła’s last poem, “Stanisław,” as the about-to-be martyred bishop of Kraków confronted his assassin: if “the word did not convert, blood will convert.”53
John Paul was rushed to a nearby ambulance and driven through the Roman evening traffic to the Policlinico Gemelli, four miles away. The drive would ordinarily take twenty-five minutes or more; the ambulance made it in eight. The Pope was conscious throughout the drive, murmuring brief prayers. Later, he recalled that “at the very moment I fell…I had this vivid presentiment that I should be saved.”54 At the hospital, John Paul lost consciousness, and for what could have been a disastrous moment, confusion reigned. The call from the Vatican to the Gemelli had simply said, “Il Papa è stato colpito,” which could have meant any number of things—that the Pope had been “hit” or “struck” or “affected”—involving any number of contingencies: a fall, a heart attack, a stroke, a shooting. The initial decision was to make a preliminary examination in the tenth-floor suite of rooms that was always in waiting for him.55 Amid the chaos on the tenth floor, it quickly became apparent that the patient, whose wounds could not be seen, was in extremis, with rapidly falling blood pressure and a weakening pulse. John Paul was rushed to the ninth floor operating theater and prepped for immediate surgery, as Monsignor Dziwisz administered the last rites of the Church to his unconscious leader.56
One of the Gemelli’s three chief surgeons, Dr. Francesco Crucitti, had been at a hospital on the Via Aurelia when he learned of the shooting. He jumped into his car, raced across town down the wrong side of a two-way street, talked his way past an irate policeman with a submachine gun, and tore into the Gemelli, where, as he said, an “unknown genius” had thought to call all the elevators to the entrance in anticipation of his arrival. He rode to the ninth floor and was assaulted by nurses and assistants who tore off his clothes and got him into his surgical gown and shoes while he quickly scrubbed up. Another doctor called from the actual operating room, “Blood pressure 80, 70, still falling.” Crucitti walked into the operating room, where the Pope was being anaesthetized, and started to work.57
Agca’s bullet had caused havoc inside the Pope’s abdomen. On making his incision, Crucitti first found “blood everywhere,” six pints of it, which were suctioned out so that the source of the hemorrhaging—the immediately life-threatening problem—could be identified. With the bleeding stanched and transfusions begun, John Paul’s blood pressure and pulse rose, and the surgery could proceed, as Crucitti later put it, “more calmly.” On exploring the Pope’s abdomen, the surgeon found multiple wounds, some due to direct impact, others to the blast effect of the bullet entering the body. The colon had been perforated and there were five wounds in the small intestine. Some five hours of surgery were required to close the colon wounds, remove twenty-two inches of intestine, and perform a temporary colostomy.58
At 8 P.M., a preliminary bulletin was released to the press and to the thousands who were still waiting in St. Peter’s Square or who had flocked there since news of the shooting had been broadcast. The statement was mildly reassuring but not definitive. A group of Polish pilgrims had brought to the audience a copy of the Black Madonna (who, as they say in Poland, is always there when something happens). After the ambulance had rushed away to the Gemelli, they took the icon and placed it on the empty chair from which John Paul was to have delivered his catechetical message. A gust of spring breeze blew it over, and a bystander noticed the inscription on the back, which had been prepared days, perhaps weeks, before—“May Our Lady protect the Holy Father from evil.”59 Forty-five minutes after midnight, a second bulletin was issued stating that the surgery had been successfully completed and that the patient’s condition was satisfactory. The crowd, which had been praying the rosary in the square for more than six hours, gradually dispersed. Teresa Życzkowska and her husband went back to their hotel to await further news of Wujek.
The Patient
John Paul would later say that “One hand fired, and another guided the bullet.”60 It was a confession of miraculous intervention that the most secular soul might have been tempted to concede. Agca, a professional assassin, had fired at point-blank range. Yet the bullet that struck the Pope missed the main abdominal artery by the merest fraction of an inch. Had the artery been struck, John Paul would have bled to death before being transferred from the Pope-mobile to the ambulance. Moreover, the bullet, which might have paralyzed him, missed his spinal column and every major nerve cluster in its potential path. Agca’s shot had evidently deflected off the Pope’s finger, which was broken. On exiting his body, the spent bullet fell to the floor of the Popemobile, from which it was eventually recovered. A second shot grazed John Paul’s elbow before wounding two American pilgrims.61
The Pope remained in the Gemelli’s intensive care unit for another four days. He had received Holy Communion on the day after his surgery and began concelebrating Mass from his bed on May 17. On the 14th, when he was coming back into full consciousness, he asked Monsignor Dziwisz if they had said Compline, the closing prayer of the liturgical day, yet. Dziwisz gently explained that it was already the next afternoon, but from that point on, John Paul always prayed the entire Liturgy of the Hours, which was recited for him until he gathered the strength to pray it with Dziwisz or his other secretary, Father John Magee.
On May 17, pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square heard a tape-recorded message from John Paul II, determined not to miss his weekly Sunday noontime appointment, which ended: “I am particularly close to the two persons wounded together with me. I pray for that brother of ours who shot me, and whom I have sincerely pardoned. United with Christ, Priest and Victim, I offer my sufferings for the Church and for the world. To you, Mary, I repeat: Totus tuus ego sum.”62
That same day, Italy voted to expand legalized abortion, against which the Pope had campaigned vigorously.
On the afternoon of May 18, a recovering John Paul II was moved out of the intensive care unit and into his suite on the tenth floor, which included a waiting room, a bedroom, a bath, a second bedroom for Monsignor Dziwisz, and a large meeting room in which the Pope’s physicians, whom he took to calling “the Sanhedrin,” gathered from time to time to discuss the case.63 The local team was supplemented by an international group of specialists whom Cardinal Casaroli summoned from West Germany, the United States, France, Spain, and Poland—a prudent decision, given the intense international interest in the Pope’s situation, his surgery, and his post-operative treatment. The Pole was John Paul’s old friend and fellow kayaker, Gabriel “Gap?” Turowski, then the head of transplantation and immunology in the Department of Surgery at Kraków’s Copernicus Academy of Medicine.64 Turowski stayed in Rome three months, “keeping company with a suffering friend” and lending his professional expertise to the case. John Paul wrote Turowski’s wife, Bozena, thanking her for lending him her husband. The Turowskis were expecting a grandchild. Every day the Pope asked Gap? whether he was a grandfather yet, and when the positive answer finally came, sent a blessing to the baby and the parents.65
On May 20, John Paul, who had been fed intravenously since his surgery, had his first meal since his lunch with the Lejeunes a week before. After he ate some soup and an egg, he and Dziwisz said the “Te Deum,” the Church’s traditional hymn of praise. Three days later, the medical team issued a bulletin stating that the Pope’s
life was no longer in danger. The good news was shadowed by a mysterious fever whose cause baffled the doctors.66
The Pope was an active patient, determined to understand what was happening to him and to have a say in his care. He had Dr. Crucitti explain the anatomy and normal workings of the intestine and the way in which the colostomy compensated for his temporary disability. When the doctors gathered for a consultation in the meeting room of his suite, he would poke fun at them afterward: “What did the Sanhedrin say today? What did the Sanhedrin decide on my behalf?”67 He was joking, but the joke had edge on it. Part of the struggle of an illness, he once told his doctors, was that a patient had to fight to become “the ‘subject of his illness’ instead of simply remaining the ‘object of treatment.’”68 The dignity of the human person was not surrendered at the hospital door.
Neither were the responsibilities of the papacy. Another crisis was at hand in Poland, as the Primate, Cardinal Wyszyński, was dying. John Paul had sent Monsignor Dziwisz to Warsaw to visit the gravely ill cardinal on May 11 and 12. Dziwisz had returned with a letter for the Pope in a sealed envelope.69 Communication had continued by phone. Their last conversation took place shortly after noon on May 25. Wyszyński, in great pain, asked in short gasps of breath for the Pope’s blessing. John Paul, as if in homage to what the older man had said and done in his life, said that he blessed the Primate’s “mouth and hands.”70 The Primate died on May 28; John Paul said his evening Mass for him. Three days later, he followed the funeral ceremonies by radio, stopping to say his own Mass at the same time as the funeral Mass was being celebrated in Warsaw.
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