John Paul II had intense friendship with married woman: BBC documentary

LONDON: Pope John Paul II had a close relationship with a married woman which lasted over 30 years, according to letters which feature in a documentary being shown by the BBC on Monday.
While the documentary does not claim he broke his vow of celibacy with Polish-born philosopher and writer Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, the tone of some of his letters to her points to intense feelings between them, the broadcaster says.
However, Poland’s national library on Monday said there was “no basis” for suggestions that pope John Paul II had improper relations with a married woman.
According to BBC, the two spent camping and skiing holidays together and went on country walks.
“My dear Teresa,” he writes. “You write about being torn apart, but I could find no answer to these words.”
Also in September 1976, he writes: “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.”
A scapular is a piece of cloth worn as part of the habit of monastic orders and the then Cardinal Karol Wojtyla gave Tymieniecka his.
“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,” he adds.