According to
letters which was featured in a documentary being shown by the BBC on
Monday, Pope John Paul II, born Karol Jozef Wojtyla, had a close
relationship with a married woman which lasted over 30 years.
Hundreds of
letters and photographs that tell the story of Pope John Paul II’s close
relationship with a married woman, which lasted more than 30 years,
have been shown to the BBC.
The letters to Polish-born American
philosopher, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka had been kept away from public view
in the National Library of Poland for years.
The documents
reveal a rarely seen side of the pontiff, who died in 2005. But there is
no suggestion the Pope broke his vow of celibacy.
The
friendship began in 1973 when Ms Tymieniecka contacted the future Pope,
Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of Krakow, about a book on
philosophy that he had written.
The then 50-year-old travelled
from the US to Poland to discuss the work. Shortly afterwards, the pair
began to correspond. At first the cardinal’s letters were formal, but as
their friendship grew, they become more intimate.
The pair decided
to work on an expanded version of the cardinal’s book, The Acting
Person. They met many times – sometimes with his secretary present,
sometimes alone – and corresponded frequently.
In 1974, he wrote
that he was re-reading four of Ms Tymieniecka’s letters written in one
month because they were “so meaningful and deeply personal”.
Photographs
which have never been seen before by the public reveal Karol Wojtyla at
his most relaxed. He invited Ms Tymieniecka to join him on country
walks and skiing holidays – she even joined him on a group camping
trip.
The pictures also show her visiting him at the Vatican.
“Here
is one of the handful of transcendentally great figures in public life
in the 20th Century, the head of the Catholic Church, in an intense
relationship with an attractive woman,” says Eamon Duffy, Professor of
the History of Christianity at Cambridge University.
In 1976,
Cardinal Wojtyla attended a Catholic conference in the US. Ms
Tymieniecka invited him to stay with her family at their country home in
New England.
She appeared to have revealed intense feelings for him
because his letters immediately afterwards suggest a man struggling to
make sense of their friendship in Christian terms.
In one, dated
September 1976, he writes: “My dear Teresa, I have received all three
letters. You write about being torn apart, but I could find no answer to
these words.” He describes her as a “gift from God”.
The BBC has
not seen any of Ms Tymieniecka’s letters. It is believed copies of them
were included in the archive that was sold to the Polish National
Library by Ms Tymieniecka in 2008, six years before she died. But they
were not with the Pope’s letters when the BBC was shown them. The
National Library of Poland has not confirmed that they have Ms
Tymieniecka’s letters.
Marsha Malinowski, a rare manuscripts dealer who negotiated the sale of
the letters, says she believes Ms Tymieniecka fell in love with Cardinal
Wojtyla in the early days of their relationship. “I think that it’s
completely reflected in the correspondence,” she told the BBC.
The
letters reveal that Cardinal Wojtyla gave Ms Tymieniecka one of his
most treasured possessions, an item known as a scapular – a small
devotional necklace worn around the shoulders.
In
a letter dated 10 September 1976 he wrote: “Already last year I was
looking for an answer to these words, ‘I belong to you’, and finally,
before leaving Poland, I found a way – a scapular. The dimension in
which I accept and feel you everywhere in all kinds of situations, when
you are close, and when you are far away.”
After
becoming Pope he wrote: “I am writing after the event, so that the
correspondence between us should continue. I promise I will remember
everything at this new stage of my journey.”
Cardinal Wojtyla had
a number of female friends, including Wanda Poltawska, a psychiatrist
with whom he also corresponded for decades. But his letters to Ms
Tymieniecka are at times more intensely emotional, sometimes wrestling
with the meaning of their relationship.
Pope John Paul II died in 2005, after an almost 27-year reign. In 2014 he was declared a saint.
Title : Unbelievable!!! His Holiness, Pope John Paul II Was In A Relationship With A Married Woman – BBC Revealed - See Photos
Description : According to letters which was featured in a documentary being shown by the BBC on Monday, Pope John Paul II, born Karol Jozef Wojtyl...
