February 28, 2016
Pope John Paul II's Correspondences: Saintly or Scandalous?
BBC has just aired a documentary entitled Secret Letters of John Paul II by Ed Stourton. The film analyzes the story of friendship of John Paul II with Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Houthakker on the basis of their 32-year-long correspondence.
The author of the documentary is mainly interested in whether the pope had a love affair with the woman. He was frustrated in his effort by lack of evidence. Mr. Stourton had access only to the letters that Pope John Paul II wrote to Mrs. Tymieniecka Houthakker. As a result, he mostly speculates on the content of her letters to the pope. The thesis is clear, and for lack of any material evidence, the journalist authoritatively presents his own vision of the past instead.
According to Stourton's imagination, Anna-Teresa told Cardinal Wojtyla in a letter that she was in love with him. And so the epistolary relationship continued for 30 years, with her visiting him in Rome under the pretext of scholarly...(Read Full Article)