A
fortnight ago the social, print and virtual media were replete with stories
that the late Pope John Paul II had a romantic relationship with a married
woman for three decades. The most notable among other media that circulated the
stories was the BBC online, Yahoo news service, the Pambazuka News, Facebook, Twitter and others. This story provoked
me to carry out some archival research to find out to which extend was Pope
John Paul II or Karol Wojytila had a sexual experience of three decades with a
married woman against the stern catholic vow of celibacy, that is usually ritually celebrated along with the sacrament of
ordainment. The sources of data for
the purpose have been literary writings and newspaper reports.
Literary
writings used in this archival research are David Yallop’s In God’s Name, Berber Thiering’s Christ the Man, the Catholic Observer
(l’oservatore), The Holy Grail, and
Marco Politi’s His Holiness, and the writings
of Lech Walesa. The findings are that yes, it is true Pope John Paul II loved a
married woman for three decades but not out of sexual motivation but out of
passion for art, literature and philosophy.
The
facts are that Dr Anne-Teresa Tymiencka, a married woman was a close friend to
Karol Wojytila for three decades. She was a doctor of Phenomenology in very
many American universities including Havard. When she came across the writings of
cardinal Wojytila, in the book, The Acting
Man, she was attracted to the author out of three reasons, philosophical
alertness in the writings, the author was a native of Poland as she was and
also the author was a man. Of course all women are attracted to men with
special traits, power and tempestuous lifestyle.
The
night and day relationship was all about philosophy and art, Wojytila being a
guru of art and philosophy given his back-ground in poetry and theatre , whereas
Anne-Teresa was a guru of philosophy of phenomenology with a strong passion for
intellectualism. Their correspondences in form of hand written letters are
still safely kept in an intact position at Havard University library. Marco
Politi in the book His Holiness
points out that it was Dr, Anne-Teresa Tymeniecka that translated Wojytila book
from the polish version, Osoba i czyn
into an English version as The Acting Man
.During the process of translation that took a period of four years Anne-Teresa
and Wojytila were always together up to late in the night on every day in the
absence of the husband of Anne-Teresa. The fact is that they were philosophical
partners but not sexual partners. This realtion was also an informal school to
Cardinal Wojytila; it gave him the frame of mind to write the encyclical Veritas Splendor or the splendor of
truth in which he discussed theology of sexuology. The same relationship also
gave Wojytila the opportunity to contribute very incisive philosophical papers
to the scholarly journal Anelecta
Husserliana.
In
contrast to the alarmist tone in the article by Henry Makori, published in the Pambazuka News, that Pope John Paul had
broken a vow of celibacy to have three decades of sexual relationship with someone’s
wife, the archival facts reveal the otherwise; the frame of the mind between cardinal
Wojytila and Anne-Teresa was basically philosophical but not erotic nor prurient.
Moreover, sexual desire among animals and logically among human beings is a
natural feeling expressing the state of normal biological conditions of an animal.
The abnormal behaviour in this situation is the vow of celibacy not Pope’s
sexual adventures or aggressiveness. There is nothing astounding for a human
being to go against abnormality in the vow of celibacy for normality in man to
woman sexual relationship.
The
only unusual thing in this juncture is a phenomenon that all great leaders are
at least victims of sexual imbroglio once in their life. Napoleon had Josphine,
Caesar had Cleopatra, Clinton had Monica Lewisky, Odysseus had calypso,
Aphrodite had Sapho, and Prince Charles had Diana in a tri-angle with Afawhyed,
Mandela had Yvon Chaka Chaka, Jesus had Mary Magdalene, Mohammed had Hadija,
Samson had Delilah, Hitler had Eva Braun and Kenyatta has Anne Waiguru, then
going by logic there is nothing wrong in the Papacy if Wojytila had his sexual
projections in Anne Teresa Tymniecka.
But
again, what is the actual source of the rumours that Karol Wojytila had three
decades of sexual relation with a married woman? The answer is this; it comes
from the politics of ideology between Russia and America. Poland the birth
place of Wojytila after having been a colony of Nazi Germany got annexed and
became a physical and ideological colony of Russia. Wojytila as a young boy experienced
these two sad episodes. Later on when he became the Pope at the Vatican, he immediately turned his
political and ideological salvo on to the communist dictatorship at his home in
Poland; Lech Walesa was only his proxy and mouthpiece. Marco Politi writes in
the His Holiness that, after the politburo realizing that it was going to
be defeated in Poland, the Soviet leaders that included comrades; Gorbachev,
Goryminko, Brezhnev and Suslov used all tactics to counter the ideological and
social terror of Christian socialism on the Soviet communism in Poland; mudslinging
was one of the tools. Then they chose to write in the Pravda, the Soviet Newspapers and other socialist papers around
world that Pope John Paul had sexual relationship for thirty years with a
married woman when he was a cardinal. They thought this would weaken the spirit
and the intellect of the Pope, but it did not. Thus, it beats logic for the
BBC, to repeat doing what soviets did five decades ago, maybe it is a vice of
intellectual laziness among the British media.
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