Pope film unveils attack attempt

A documentary film based on the memoirs of the late Pope John Paul's personal aide, reveals the Pontiff was stabbed in an attempted assassination.

A vatican secret has been revealed.

The late pope's personal aide Stanislaw Dziwsz says Pope John Paul was stabbed by a knife wielding man.

The revelation comes to light in an on screen version of Dziwsz's published memoirs.

Knife wielding Spanish priest, Juan Fernandez Krohn lunged at the pope with a dagger whilst he was visiting Fatima in Portugal.

This was the second assassination attempt on the Pope.

Only one year earlier, in 1981 a Turkish gunman fired shots at the Pontiff in St Peter's square.

British actor Michael York is the narrator.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR MICHAEL YORK SAYING:

'' It's interesting to be here in Poland, you can relate to what he did, to what was was happening, the political era and so on, the kind of courage it took to virtually take on the communist state and suggest there was an alternative and a better reality to life as it was. And that I admire. And maybe as much as I was aware before of John Paul II's role in his pontificate that's what struck me now, that he was a warrior Pope, too. He was celebrating human life and also expressing the importance of its protection."

Towards the end of his life the late Pope was suffering from Parkinson's.

The film also reveals how he told his aides that if he could no longer speak, the time had come to let him go.

Testimony will premiere at the vatican.

Basmah Fahim, Reuters.