Letters reveal ‘intense’ 30-year friendship between Pope John Paul II and married Polish emigre

There is no evidence or basis to suggest Pope John Paul II had improper relations with a married woman, according to Poland’s national library.

The library spoke out after the BBC, based on letters from its archives, detailed an “intense” 30-year friendship between the two.

The BBC says there is no suggestion of a sexual relationship between the pope and Polish-born philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka but the letters reveal an intense bond between them.

“The statements made in the media have no basis in the content of the letters of John Paul II to Anna Teresa Tymieniecka which are in the National Library of Poland’s archives,” a library spokesperson said.

One of hundreds of letters that Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II sent to a Polish-American philosopher  during the 32 years of joint work and friendship between the two, now  kept  at the National Library in Warsaw, Poland, on Tuesday, 16 Feb. 2016. Picture supplied by Bill and Jadwiga Smith

“John Paul II was surrounded by a circle of friends — including clergymen, nuns and laypeople — with whom he stayed in close contact. Anna Teresa Tymieniecka was within this circle of friends. John Paul II’s friendship with her was neither secret nor extraordinary.”

Father Adam Boniecki, editor-in-chief of Tygodnik Powszechny Catholic weekly said it was not unimaginable that a married woman could have fallen in love with Pope John Paul II.

“Women fall in love with priests all the time, and it’s always a big headache... If she was in love with Wojtyla, she was most likely not alone,” said Fr Boniecki, himself the author of a detailed account of the pope-turned-saint’s life.

However, many believe the pair merely shared an intellectual friendship.

In the beginning, Karol Wojtyla from Krakov, southern Poland, was a dynamic priest on the rise. Ms Tymieniecka was a married Polish emigre, living in the US.

Pictures supplied by Bill and Jadwiga Smith

Yet when they met in Krakov, to collaborate on an English version of a book he had written, something on some other level clicked. They began an exchange of letters that continued for the rest of his life. Her letters to him seemed to make him uncomfortable.

“You write about being torn apart, but I could find no answer to these words,” Wojtyla said. Particularly the words, “I belong to you”.

As he rose up the hierarchy — a cardinal about to be elected pope — they continue to correspond. The letters were sent in a way to avoid the Polish communist censors who could have used the whiff of scandal to undermine the Catholic Church.

“It’s good you sent your letter by hand, it contains things too deep for the censor’s eyes,” Cardinal Wojtyla wrote in 1978. “They are so meaningful and deeply personal.”

The couple spent time together in Vermont where Ms Tymieniecka had a house. In Poland, they went on ski trips together.

When Wojtyla was surprisingly elected pope, communication would become more difficult, but not impossible, Pope John Paul II soon wrote.

Pope John Paul ll and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka at the Vatican. Picture supplied by Bill and Jadwiga Smith

“I promise I will remember everything at this new stage of my journey. I am think about you. In my thoughts I come to Pomfret [her house in Vermont] every day,” he wrote.

She is said to have come to Rome to be at his bedside as he was dying, but she has been removed from official Vatican history.

Edward Stourton, the senior BBC journalist who made a documentary about the letters, said more than 350 letters were found at the National Library of Poland.

“I would say they were more than friends but less than lovers,” he said.