Did The Pope Have A Lover? Letters Reveal ‘Extraordinary’ Relationship Between John Paul II And Married woman

Letters written by Pope John Paul II have emerged that reveal the pontiff was involved in an “extraordinary” relationship with a married woman that lasted for more than 30 years.

The former Pope, who died in 2005 and was canonised in 2014, met Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka before he was elected Pope in 1978.

The letters, which have lain undiscovered in the Polish national library and kept away from public view until they were uncovered by the BBC, tell of a complex and intense friendship in which it has been suggested that Ms Tymieniecka told the pontiff he she loved him..

In the correspondence, Pope John Paul II declares she is a ‘gift of God’, indicating he was struggling to come to terms with the nature of their relationship. He writes: “If I did not have this conviction, some moral certainty of Grace, and of acting in obedience to it, I would not dare act like this.”

The letters also reveal he gave her the scapular (a small devotional necklace) his father had given him at his first Holy Communion.

There is no suggestion his vow of celibacy was broken.

The correspondence began when Ms Tymieniecka contacted him in 1973 about a book of philosophy he had written.

Professor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge University, Eamon Duffy said: “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.”

“You write about being torn apart, but I could find no answer to these words.”

culled from the Independent London