Juan María Fernández y Krohn

Juan María Fernández y Krohn (born  May 1950 in Madrid , Spain ) is a sedisvakantist Catholic traditionalist and former lawyer and priest of the Roman Catholic Church. He became known through his assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II on May 12, 1982 in the Portuguese pilgrimage site of Fátima .

Life

Youth and Studies

Fernández y Krohn was born in Madrid in May 1950 to a medium-sized Andalusian family with distant Norwegian ancestors. He successfully studied at the Escuelas Pías in Madrid's Argüelles district . At the age of 17, he began studying economics at the Complutense University in Madrid. At the beginning of his studies he joined the syndicalist and Falangist frat Frente de Estudiantes Sindicalistas (FES) and distinguished himself as an activist of the progressive wing of the group produced without being violent. He graduated with very good results.

After turning away from his previous political activity, he increasingly took on anti-communist and integralist positions and visited various places of Marian apparitions .

Priestly activity

In 1975 he came into contact with the Society of St. Pius X. (Pius Brotherhood) in Ecône in the Swiss canton of Valais . In Argentina and later in Brazil he kept in touch with integralist communities. In 1978 Fernández y Krohn was ordained a priest by the traditionalist archbishop and founder of the Pius Brotherhood, Marcel Lefebvre . As a pastor, Fernández y Krohn was responsible for two parishes of the Society near Paris and in Rouen . The Pius Brotherhood was founded in 1970 to adhere to the rites and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, which the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) had abandoned from the perspective of the Brotherhood. In 1979 the Pius Brothers Fernández y Krohn excluded because he had shown "signs of spiritual instability" and criticized Archbishop Lefebvre for his allegedly too weak opposition to the Pope. According to the brotherhood, Fernández y Krohn separated from Lefebvre in 1980 and joined a sedevacantist group.

In July 1981 he toured Poland and tried unsuccessfully to interview Lech Wałęsa , the founder of the anti-communist union Solidarność .

The assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II

Sequence of events

On May 12, 1982 Pope John Paul II was on a pilgrimage to the Virgin Mary in Fátima after surviving the attack by the assassin Mehmet Ali Ağca on St. Peter's Square a year earlier on the memorial day of Our Lady of Fátima . Fernández y Krohn, dressed in a cassock , approached him from behind in a crowd and shouted “Down with the Pope, down with the Second Vatican Council”. Then he stabbed John Paul II with the 40 cm long bayonet of a Mauser rifle . He survived the attack with minor injuries and blessed the assassin on the day of the incident. Fernández y Krohn was overpowered by the security forces at the scene and was arrested without resistance.

Processing of the attack

Juan María Fernández y Krohn had to answer for the attempted murder under both canon law and Portuguese criminal law.

Canon Law

As a member of the Roman Catholic Church, the perpetrator withdrew according to Canons 1331f. and 1370 § 1 of Canon Law the church punishment of excommunication . In the case of the use of force against the Pope, the church punishment comes into force directly through the act without trial . Due to the excommunication, Fernández y Krohn lost the right to receive or administer the sacraments , but remained a member of the church.

Criminal law

Fernández y Krohn was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for attempted murder. In addition, he received an additional seven months' detention for disobeying the court. During the trial he accused John Paul II of having been smuggled into the Vatican as a communist agent in order to corrupt the latter . He denied hurting the Pope. After serving three years of sentence in a prison near Lisbon , he was released in 1985 and expelled from Portugal.

After release from prison

After his expulsion from Portugal, Fernández y Krohn went to Belgium , where he worked as a lawyer. There he gained additional fame because he slapped a judge. He later worked as a blogger .

He described his assassination as a "victim" for the salvation of the Church, Spain and his conviction as a "national Catholic". He declared that he was not crazy and that he would not regret his act, even if he would not repeat it, because he had developed further. He described himself as a sinner , but denied having committed a crime. He accused the assassin Mehmet Ali Ağca of being anti-Christian and anti-Western and of considering the Pope to be the leader of the crusades. Fernández y Krohn also claimed that John Paul II - unlike Ağca - never forgave him. He committed the attack with direct killing intent and planned it for six months.

Recent criminal offenses and imprisonment

In 1996 Fernández y Krohn was tried and convicted of arson in the Brussels office of the separatist Basque party Herri Batasuna .

He was arrested again in 2000 and charged with attempting physical attacks on King Albert II of Belgium and King Juan Carlos I of Spain in Brussels . He was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for this.

family

Fernández y Krohn has a grown son.

Web links

• Juan Fernández Krohn desde Bélgica . Fernández y Krohn's personal weblog

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} BBC News : Pope John Paul 'wounded' in 1982 , October 16, 2008, accessed on January 3, 2005 (with video file of the seconds before the attack)
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Der Spiegel : Vatican: Big Appetite , probably incorrect date in the article, May 17, 1982, accessed on January 3, 2015
3. ^ Das Handelsblatt : List of all attempted attacks , April 2, 2005, accessed on May 12, 2017
4. ↑ ^{a b c} El País: Rafael Fraguas: El frustrado agresor del Papa, en Fátima, un hombre brillante y vehemente , May 14, 1982. Accessed January 3, 2015
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} El País : Miguel Mora: El último misterio de Fátima , October 16, 2008. Accessed January 3, 2015
6. ↑ Pictures and description of the Fatima World Apostolate
7. ↑ ^{a b} Crista Kramer von Reisswitz: Sombrero for the hasty father , Der Spiegel, April 7, 2005. Accessed January 3, 2015
8. ↑ Codex Iuris Canonici: Book VI in German translation ( Memento of the original from July 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ El Mundo : José Manuel Vidal: “No llegué a herir al Papa” , October 19, 2008, accessed on January 3, 2015