Vatican City, Aug 25, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Pope John Paul II, who was shot at in 1981 and survived though with many health problems, was “an authentic martyred Pope,” said the editor-in-chief of the Vatincan’s daily newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.
Mario Agnes told an annual pro-Catholic political meeting recently that the stones in St. Peter's Square where John Paul's blood was shed should be preserved.
"These stones of St. Peter's Square where a bit of John Paul II's blood fell may be merited, and certainly merit being preserved as a historic document, because there fell the blood of an authentic martyred pope, hit in the full of his physical vitality, victim of an attack," he was quoted as saying by ANSA.
"The fact that he didn't die doesn't mean he wasn't a martyr," Agnes said.