Pope John Paul
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Pope John Paul John Paul
Citing new photographic analysis, an Italian parliamentary commission has concluded that top Soviet leaders were behind the failed plot to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981. The commission wrote, using John Paul's given name, in a preliminary report released to news organizations this week, that this commission holds, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leadership of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate Pope Karol Wojtyla. The report has no legal bearing, but reopens a central unanswered question from the cold war era: Whether Bulgarian secret agents, working on behalf of the Soviets, played a role in the shooting in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981, which gravely wounded John Paul. The report claims that the Soviet leadership saw John Paul as a threat because of his support for the Solidarity trade union, which worked to undermine Soviet control in his native Poland.