In a report on John Paul II’s visit to New York in 1979, Time magazine noted, “The Pontiff is emerging as the kind of incandescent leader that the world so hungers for-one who can make people feel that they have been lifted above the drabness of their own lives and show them that they are capable of better emotions, and better deeds, than they may have thought.”

The physically vigorous pontiff was “a man for all seasons, all situations, all faiths, a beguilingly modest superstar of the church. The professional philosopher read [to] the diplomats of the United Nations a closely reasoned intellectual sermon on the importance of human rights and freedom-and offered in contrast the ghastly memory of Auschwitz in his homeland.” The “athlete-outdoorsman” maintained a schedule “that would have stunned many a man of far fewer years than his 59, and he seemed impervious to the driving rains that fell on his motorcades in Boston and Manhattan.” The man who had been an actor before entering the priesthood “displayed a sure command of smile, gesture and wink, and capitalized on a thick Polish accent to draw a laughing cheer by voicing admiration for Manhattan’s ‘sky-scroppers.’…

“The humanitarian pastor delighted in the happiness of his flock, said the Time article, and he became one with them. Children were his special favorites, and he swept them up lightly in his brawny arms. When a young monsignor from Harlem bent to kiss his ring, John Paul lifted him to his feet and kissed him on both cheeks.”

Said Billy Graham, “He’s the most respected religious leader in the world today.” President Carter welcomed John Paul II at a Saturday afternoon ceremony on the White House lawn with “God blessed America by sending you to us.”

To cold-eyed men in KGB offices in Moscow, John Paul II was not a godsend who resided in a palace with walls, corridors and rooms ornately decorated with the masterpieces of the world’s greatest artists, but a troublemaker holding an office in a Vatican that had strong, but secret, ties to the American intelligence services. The KGB men took notice that when Ronald Reagan took office as president, he chose as head of the CIA a Roman Catholic and member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM).

Founded in A.D. 1080 as Crusaders, the Knights of Malta “historically had been the military arm of the Vatican and was regarded as a separate state with full powers of statehood, including issuing its own diplomatic passports.” It was said that in more recent decades SMOM acted as a funding conduit, a money laundry for the CIA, and the Vatican ’s intelligence agency. “ Malta knighthoods were awarded to many leading individuals who were part of the military and intelligence community.”

President Reagan’s choice as CIA Director was William Casey. Other Knights of Malta in the Reagan administration were former NATO general and later secretary of state Alexander Haig and presidential advisor General Vernon Walters, a former deputy director of the CIA under George H. W. Bush, and later a roving ambassador.

The relationship between the U.S. intelligence community, the Vatican, and the SMOM began when the legendary head of the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the precursor of the CIA) was knighted by Pope Pius XII. William “Wild” Bill Donovan was made a Knight along with his wartime compatriot and later CIA Chief of Counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton. “Donovan was ushered into an ornate chamber in Vatican City for an audience with Pope Pius XII” and decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Sylvester. The oldest and most prestigious of papal knighthoods, this rarely bestowed “award was given to men who ‘by feat of arms or writings or outstanding deeds have spread the Faith and have safeguarded and championed the Church.’”

Donovan was deemed worthy because of services he rendered to the Catholic hierarchy in World War II. “In 1941, the year before OSS was officially constituted, Donovan forged an alliance with Father Felix Morlion, the founder of a European Catholic intelligence service known as Pro Deo. When the Germans overran Western Europe, Donovan helped Morlion move his base of operations from Lisbon to New York. From then on, Pro Deo was financed by Donovan, who believed that it would result in insights into the secret affairs of the Vatican ” and provide a window into the activities of the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini. “When the Allies liberated Rome in 1944, Morlion reestablished a spy network in the Vatican.”

“For centuries, the Vatican was a prime target of foreign espionage. One of the world’s greatest repositories of raw intelligence, it was a spy’s gold mine. Ecclesiastical, political and economic information filtered in from thousands of priests, bishops and the papal nuncios of the Office of the Papal Secretariat. So rich was this source of intelligence that after the war, the CIA created a special unit in its counterintelligence section to tap it and monitor developments within the Vatican…

“Since World War II, the CIA was reported to have subsidized a Catholic lay organization that served as a political slugging arm of the pope and the Vatican throughout the Cold War; penetrated the American section of one of the wealthiest and most powerful Vatican orders (Knights of Malta); and passed money to a large number of priests and bishops-some of whom became witting [an agent who knows he reports to an agency of the U.S. government] agents in CIA covert operations. They employed undercover operatives to lobby members of the Curia and spy on liberal churchmen on the pope’s staff who challenged the political assumptions of the United States; and prepared intelligence briefings that accurately predicted the rise of liberation theology.” The CIA also collaborated with Catholic groups to counter actions of leftist clerics in Latin America.

“In February 1981, just over a year following his triumphal visit to the United States, Pope John Paul II planned to refuel for three hours in Anchorage, Alaska, en route home following a major pastoral trip to the Philippines, Japan, and Guam. When the White House learned of this plan, National Security Council staffers recommended that Reagan ‘establish an early, personal relationship with the Pope while welcoming him back to North American soil.’ On February 5, NSC staffer James M. Rentschler proposed that a ‘Nanook-of-the-North mission’ be mounted during the pope’s Alaskan layover.

“Accordingly, when John Paul landed in Anchorage on February 25, the envoy-designate to the Vatican, William Wilson, handed him a letter from Reagan, stating: ‘…I hope you will not hesitate to use [Wilson] as the channel for sensitive matters you or your associates may wish to communicate to me.’”

Three moths later, John Paul II was being driven slowly around St. Peter’s Square in his open jeep to greet thousands of people who crowded into Vatican City to see him and receive his blessing. On May 13, 1981, dressed in a papal-white cassock, he was shaking hands and lifting small children into his arms. As he reached a point just outside the Vatican ’s bronze gate, there was a burst of gunfire.

“One hand rising to his face and blood staining his garments,” reported the New York Times, “the Pope faltered and fell into the arms of his Polish secretary, the Rev. Stanislaw Dziwisz, and his personal servant, Angelo Gugel, who were in the vehicle with him…

Rushed by an ambulance to Gemelli Hospital, two miles north of the Vatican, for surgery,…John Paul was conscious as he was taken to the operating room…

“The gunman had fired four times in the attack. Two tourists, an American and a Jamaican, were wounded by two of the bullets. The gunman, armed with a nine-millimeter Browning automatic, was set upon by bystanders, who knocked the pistol out of his hand. He was arrested, taken away by police car, and later identified as twenty-three-year-old Mehmet Ali Agca. Police quoted him as having told them, ‘My life is not important.’