Teen pleads guilty to plotting to kill Pope

An ISIS-inspired plot for 15 year-old Santos Colon to kill Pope Francis was quietly stopped by the FBI.

Colon planned to kill Francis  at his final papal Mass at Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

It would have been the last day of Francis’s 2015 visit to the US.

Had he been successful, the hundreds of thousands of people at the Mass would have witnessed the killing.

Colon pleaded guilty on Monday to attempting to kill Francis.

The US Justice Department said Colon tried to recruit a sniper to shoot Francis while he was celebrating Mass in Philadelphia. He was also planning to set off explosives.

Colon’s plan was scuttled because he “engaged in target reconnaissance with an FBI confidential source and instructed the source to purchase materials to make explosive devices,” the Department explained.

If he is convicted, the Department said Colon will almost certainly spend some time in a psychiatric facility before being imprisoned.

He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

According to the Department it is unclear how Colon is connected with ISIS.

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