Juan María Fernández y Krohn

Juan María Fernández y Krohn (born c. 1948) is a Spanish Traditionalist Catholic priest, journalist, and lawyer, who was convicted for the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1982.

[1][2][3][4] Fernández y Krohn was born c. 1948 in Madrid, the son of a middle-class Andalusian family with distant Norwegian ancestors.

At the beginning of his studies he joined the syndicalist and Falangist fraternity Frente de Estudiantes Sindicalistas (FES) and acted as an activist on the progressive wing of the group.

[citation needed] The FSSPX was founded in 1970 to adhere to the rites and disciplines of the Roman Catholic Church from before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

[2][6] In 1979, Fernández y Krohn was expelled for having shown "signs of mental instability" and criticizing Archbishop Lefebvre for his allegedly too weak opposition to the pope.

[2][6] In July 1981, he traveled to Poland, trying unsuccessfully to conduct an interview with Lech Wałęsa, the founder of the Solidarity trade union.

[13] After his expulsion from Portugal, Fernández y Krohn went to Belgium, where he abandoned the priesthood, married a Portuguese journalist, worked as a lawyer, and became a blogger.

There he came to additional notoriety where "he gained a bad reputation when he smacked a judge and handed out anti-semitic literature in the Brussels Palace of Justice".