Baby Who 'Saved' Pope Now Mother-to-Be

ROME, April 6, 2005 — -- Today Sara Bartoli is a 25-year-old who works the register at her parent's supermarket in the small town of Lariano, located south of Rome.

But on May 13, 1981, Bartoli was an 18-month-old baby in a blue dress, picked out of the crowd by Pope John Paul II as his car wove through St. Peter's Square.

Seconds later, the pope was shot -- the target of a failed assassination attempt. Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca would later say his aim was thrown off when the pope hoisted little Sara in the air. The baby was too close, he said, so he waited to shoot.

Bartoli says "in some sense" she may have helped save the pope's life. "The fact that I was there that moment might even be a miracle, I don't know," she said.

The headlines at the time, however were insistent: "Angel Baby Who Protected the Pope," one newspaper wrote.

Hundreds of letters poured in as well. Some addressed only to "the mother and father of the baby the pope held."

The notes were always kind, but Bartoli says they came with a great feeling of responsibility.

"Especially because we're not talking about some person," she said, "We are talking about the pope! And all of my life I felt a heavy weight on my shoulders."

Bartoli for years felt so much pressure and grew so tired of all the press that she tried to distance herself from that fateful moment on the square.

But on Easter Sunday, she saw a sickly pope appear at his window on television and was overcome with emotion.

"Twenty-four years after the assassination attempt," she said, "it was the first time I actually cried seeing the pope's condition."