The proclamation of the Christian gospel is not restricted to pulpits and Sunday school classrooms. The Pope is shaking Ali Agca's hand, and his other hand is around Agca's shoulder. A one-inch type insert spans the picture, drawing the two men even closer together. The cover story was excellent, proclaiming with evangelical zeal that a pardon from the Pontiff was a lesson in forgiveness in a troubled world. Most readers of the magazine had probably forgotten the story of the attempted assassination which had taken place in Rome's St. Peter's Square in May 1981.
Violence is so common.
Spectacles of revenge and terror occur so regularly, we pass them off almost as soon as they happen. But when it happened, it shocked the world as the picture was captured on TV and in newspapers. Pope John Paul II, in white robes, was capsized backward on his seat, stricken, in a posture reminiscent of the Pieta. The pope had been shot. Time magazine is not unaware of the power of pictures and the dramatic use of imagery.