When David DePerro was nine years old, on a family trip to Rome, he found himself in St. Peter’s Square as Pope John Paul II was shot. On the 35th anniversary of the shooting by Mehmet Ali Agca, who the saint would later visit in prison and forgive, DePerro– who was a National Review Institute Washington Fellow in 2015 – talks about what he remembers, what he learned, and why it’s relevant, especially in a year the current pontiff has dedicated to mercy.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: How did you happen to be in the crowd so close that day?
David DePerro: In May 1981, I traveled to Rome on a tour from Würzburg, West Germany, where my father was stationed in the Army. It was our second family trip to Rome. I was nine years old. The grown-ups pushed all of us kids up front so we could shake the pope’s hand. John Paul’s vehicle moved inches at a time, and it was very exciting. We have photos from the Vatican News Service with all the kids reaching our hands out to shake his hand.
LOPEZ: What do you remember about the details and how you processed it when it happened?
DEPERRO: A few minutes after I shook his hand, the vehicle came around to the other side of the crowd. The sound of popping was very confusing. Fireworks? Very out of place. The mood of the crowd changed. The vehicle sped off. The news traveled through the crowd that the pope had been shot. Some adults were crying. I thought I should cry too, so I made myself cry. I didn’t feel sadness or grief, so I felt guilty. I was mainly in shock, a name I could only give it later.
A woman in our group had also been hit by a bullet in the elbow. There was a third victim also, not with our group.
A brash voice started on the loudspeaker nonstop and it was extremely annoying to me and I wished it would stop. (It was the Rosary in Italian, I learned.) We stood around in St. Peter’s Square for an eternity. The police confiscated all our cameras and film. Finally our coach came right into the square and we loaded and left.
LOPEZ: You were in the audience the other day at a panel NRI and Heritage hosted on ISIS genocide. Why did you bring this anniversary up during Q&A with Fr. Douglas Bazi from Iraq?
DEPERRO: The memory of the shooting of the pope is also the memory of his triumph: his recovery, his immediate trust in Mary to bring him through, his eventual forgiveness of his attacker. Thus he rejected victimhood and vengeance in favor of grace. John Paul’s story, then, is a point of unity for sufferings to draw us together with others who suffer.
The reality of the persecuted Christians of Iraq puts our suburban psychic pains and even our political persecutions into proper perspective. I was moved by the perceptive answer Fr. Bazi gave to my question. He grasps the spiritual poverty of the West. The sufferings of his brave people can be a grace to others, to us. He is grieved by the suffering of his flock, but he is also honored by their perseverance in Christ. He draws strength from them. We can help them, but they can help us too.
LOPEZ:Why is marking the 35th anniversary of his shooting importance in the year of mercy?
DEPERRO: Worldwide it seems we’ve become exhausted with a news cycle of uneasy pauses between terrifying occasions of unspeakable violence. We have a modern saint, John Paul, once stricken, now in Heaven who stands as a beacon of hope. The anniversary allows us to take control of the news cycle and the narrative. We can speak of goodness, light, and love in the life of a very good man who relates to suffering because he suffered.
LOPEZ: How can this anniversary be a help to victims of violence?
DEPERRO: The benefit of this anniversary is to take a case that is already public, of which all of us can take ownership, because John Paul was the shepherd of us all. We can speak freely of the particulars of his case, applying the lessons in our hearts to personal experiences of violence. And we can take hope in a happy ending.
We also face the delicate question of how to help victims by averting violence in the first place. The aggrieved see themselves as the victims. Some become susceptible to the temptation of committing violence. John Paul has given us a way forward here too, because he impressed upon us the dignity of every human person. The loving Christ, the divine image, is present in every human person. That is his chief teaching, and it can avert a lot of violence.
Last year I started learning to draw. I made a charcoal copy of the Rembrandt Head of Christ. It fills me with peace to gaze upon the Savior’s face. Seeing the human person as made in the image of God can be a great consolation – and challenge – filled with hope for our schools and communities.
LOPEZ: Isn’t forgiveness much easier said than done? Does John Paul II’s witness provide anything practical for anyone who feels saintliness impossible or for the rare exceptions to humanity’s rules?
DEPERRO: We don’t want to forgive because we’ve lost our sense of security, and we may never get it back. Or we’ve lost our beloved whom we can never get back. The loss is irrevocable, but we hold on. John Paul certainly had grave losses in his younger years. He had to be trained in sanctity too, to be ready for his great trial.
LOPEZ: How can we see ourselves from the outside?
DEPERRO:To withhold forgiveness will turn us into people we ourselves don’t want to be. John Paul offers us a way out of that. We can become like him—if not in his greatness, then in his goodness.
LOPEZ: Is there anything practical about the year of mercy? Or is it really just another churchy thing that passed most by?
DePerro: Mercy is made real by a John Paul, a Mother Teresa, and by us. The year of mercy is a practical excuse to start giving other people a break or maybe even picking up the phone and asking them if they need anything, like a job or an hour of our time on a difficult task.
Eyewitness Account of John Paul II 1981 Shooting