Pope to tell of his brush with death

[emad]

TIMES
Ruth Gledhill, London
January 25, 2005

THE Pope is to publish his "last testament", in which he will give his first account of his thoughts during the 1981 attempt on his life by a young Turkish assassin.

The rare personal revelations will guarantee the book, Memory and Identity, is an instant bestseller when it lands in bookshops around the world in March. Aimed at a global audience, rather than just the Catholic faithful, it is also certain to be hailed as the most important religious book of recent times.

Defying the old age and illness that have marked the final years of his pontificate, the 84-year-old Pope has written the 400-page tome in a question and answer format.

The personal and moving account of how he almost lost his life to Mehmet Ali Agca's bullet in St Peter's Square on May 13, 1981, is in the epilogue.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12042168%255E2703,00.html

[emad]

1. Voice of Vatican that has defied silence

Times
By Laura Peek



MEMORY and Identity is the fourth autobiographical volume by Pope John Paul II and is certain to become the most famous.

His 1994 bestseller Crossing the Threshold of Hope was a series of questions and answers developed from a set of questions submitted to the Vatican for a broadcast interview, in which he affirmed traditional teaching and opposed modern ideas such as feminism, abortion and women priests.

In 1996, he published Gift and Mystery to commemmorate the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination. This was a recollection of a life of sacrifice and self-denial and revealed the Pope’s reflective side and his near-mystical view of the priestly vocation.

Arise, Let Us Go covered the Pope’s experiences as a bishop and cardinal in Cracow from 1958 until his election as Pope in 1978.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-1454202,00.html

[theHandpuppet]

2. Sorry, but the fact that the Pope is publishing a book...

... doesn't rate as "news" to me. I see by the front page of LBN, however, that you like to keep us all informed of everything the Pope says or does, whether or not it is truly LBN.