Vatican plays down death plot

BY VIVIANE HEWITT IN ROME
THE VATICAN WAS this week keen to play down reports of a papal assassination attempt, revealed in new international intelligence reports. US and Filipino intelligence reports leaked this week alleged that a professional assassin, known as the "New Jackal", abandoned an I 1 th hour bid to kill the Pope in Manila, where he celebrated Mass for four million pilgrims last week.
The reports suggest that the assassin may consider carrying out his assassination attempt in a more low-profile location, such as Rome, where the Pope's appearances are more routine.
The allegations follow the discovery of bomb-making equipment and maps of the papal itinerary in a Manila apartment two weeks ago, and a number of later arrests in Sri Lanka.
To avoid creating alarm during the Pope's travels in South East Asia, Manila police issued no details of their raid on the flat.
The police report names the alleged assassin as Ramiz Ahmed Yousef, thought to be Iraqi-born and 28 years old. US services said that Yousef played a part in the bombing last year of the World Trade Centre in New York.
It is also claimed that he is being sought in Thailand for the murder of a transport company employee. Yousef is thought to have attempted to hire one of the company's trucks for a remote-controlled bomb attack on the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok.
The alleged assassin is said to have links with a Londonbased trading company: after their find in the Manila flat, Filipino police arrested two people who owned identity cards in the names of employees of a London trading company.
Meanwhile, Pope John Paul II returned to the Vatican this week after his hugely successful Asian trip his longest tour for five years having confounded close advisors who said he was not up to the energy-sapping journey. Although looking tired after the 20,000-mile round trip, the Holy Father said he plans further overseas visits.
He told reporters on the flight back to Rome that he intends this year to take up earlier-postponed trips to Belgium and the United Nations, the Czech Republic, as well as visiting Africa to formally close last year's African Synod.
During 11 exhausting days, the 74-year-old pontiff visited Australia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea, celebrated the largest Mass of his pontificate and conducted three beatifications.
The only upset on the otherwise hugely successful tour was a public snub by Sri Lanka's Buddhist leaders.
John Paul was said to be disappointed with the reaction of Buddhist leaders to remarks in his book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, that Buddhism was a largely atheistic system of faith. "I come as a friend, I come as a pilgrim of good will, with nothing but peace in my heart," he told Sri Lankans.
But Buddhist monks protested by refusing to attend a key inter-faith breakfast meeting with the Pope in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.
During the gathering, attended by Muslim and Hindu leaders, the Pope said that inter-religious dialogue was vital: "It is necessary to be together. Not being together is dangerous". Although the Pope walked haltingly throughout the tour the legacy of his broken hip last year he stood up well to the tour. The only time that he looked excessively tired on the whole trip was during a 20-mile ride in his Popemobile to Colombo upon arrival in the country. Aides said that the air-conditioning in the glass-enclosed vehicle had broken down, leaving the Holy Father to
endure severe heat.
Two days earlier in Sydney, John Paul beatified a radical Australian nun, while at the same time defending the Church's position on the role of women. During the beatification of Sr Mary MacKillop, he said: "A mistaken anthropology is at the root of the failure to understand Church teaching on the true role of women." Equality between men and women did not mean that there was no difference between them.
The role of women "is in no way diminished but is in fact enhanced by being related in a special way to mother
hood," he said. Sr Mary, said the Pope, was "a faithful daughter of the Church". She co-founded in the late-1800s the Josephites, the first missionary order of nuns in Australia, but only after opposition from the local hierarchy. She was excommunicated by a local bishop.