In May 1981, an assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II went awry as he mooched his way across St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City.
Mehmet Ali Agca, fresh from a Turkish prison after receiving a life sentence for killing a journalist, had fired four shots, two of which hit the pope in his lower intestine, one in his right arm and another in his left index finger.
Agca was quickly tackled to the ground while his target was rushed to hospital, where thankfully, he made a full recovery.
Two years later, the pontiff visited Agca in jail and forged a friendship, even staying in touch with his family. Come 2000, he’d requested he be pardoned.
While incarcerated, Agca is said to have converted to Christianity and even returned to Rome in December 2014 to lay roses as the pope’s tomb.
In October 2018, another act of forgiveness – albeit on a much smaller scale – has hit the news after one dad went out of his way to spend time with a kid who’d been bullying his son to find out why.
Aubrey Delinzer, from Houston, Texas, instead of achieving the short-term punishment of an exclusion from school, decided to meet with his son’s tormenter.
What he found was perhaps even more tragic: the bully had been subject to harassment himself for not having clean clothes or shoes.
It turned out his family had entered a rough patch, leaving all of them essentially homeless.
Aubrey set up a a GoFundMe page which read:
So I just had to share my story yesterday .. I decided to spend some time with my sons school bully yesterday .. just to dig a little deeper on”why?” [sic]
.. come to find out he was being bullied for not having clean clothes n clean shoes.. .. once again I asked “why?” .. just to find out that his family had fell on hard times and is currently homeless .. [sic]
it started to make perfect sense .. we have no clue what these children are going thru these days because a lot of us just don’t care ..and this is not a uncommon story for a lot of people .. so I spent a lot of my day yesterday by shopping and teaching this young man about self respect. Integrity. Morals. [sic]
He adds:
Confidence. And other things that consist of going from a troubled youth to a great man.. we all come from different backgrounds but we all share the same goal of success …. [sic]
I see wayyyyyy too much flexing and twerking .. clubs n etc.. not enough helping to our black community.. these young kings need us man they really do .. I can’t do it by myself .. .. [sic]
yesterday somebody called me a angel .. honestly I feel it now .. if anybody wants to help this young man my dms are open @Illuminaubrey_ . I mean this in biggest way of endearment #blackfathers #fathersagainstbullies. [sic]
In a series of tweets, which have notched up over 112k favourites at the time of writing, Aubrey shared a video of him taking the kid shopping.
Clearly delighted, the young lad barely registers as someone who may be capable of threatening or intimidating another person.
When it was all said and done, the two boys were pictured on a sofa playing games together.
Good work from all involved.
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