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.
John Paul II had intense friendship with married woman: BBC documentary
John Paul II had intense friendship with married woman: BBC documentary
UK interior minister insists asylum reforms ‘fair’ amid blowback
- Mahmood argued in a speech that she was “restoring order and control” to Britain’s borders
- Amnesty International called the latest measure a “punitive blow”
LONDON: Britain’s interior minister doubled down Thursday on her tough stance on immigration despite criticism from charities and unease within the ruling Labour party that it is shedding left-wing voters.
Shabana Mahmood announced that asylum seekers who break the law or work illegally will be thrown out of government-funded accommodation and lose their support payments.
The policy forms part of a major overhaul of migration rules announced late last year and modelled on Denmark’s strict asylum system that aims to slash irregular migration to the UK.
Mahmood argued in a speech that she was “restoring order and control” to Britain’s borders and that her overhaul of the asylum was “firm but fair,” adding she would open new and safe legal routes.
But Amnesty International called the latest measure a “punitive blow” that “risks forcing people into destitution, homelessness and exploitation while they wait for their claims to be decided.”
Mahmood’s reforms are widely seen as an attempt to stem support for the hard-right Reform UK party, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage.
It has topped opinion polls for a year, in part because of the government’s failure to stop thousands of migrants from arriving in England from northern France on small boats.
But her stance has also been credited with contributing to Labour losing support to the progressive Green party, which won a local election in a traditional Labour heartland last week.
Mahmood said there was a middle path between Farage’s “nightmare pulling up the drawbridge and shutting out the world” and Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s “fairy tale of open borders.”
Her reform that makes refugee status temporary, including for accompanied children, came into force this week.
The status will be reviewed every 30 months, with refugees forced to return to their home countries once those are deemed safe.
They will also need to wait for 20 years, instead of the current five, before they can apply for permanent residency.
She also announced earlier this week that the government would stop issuing education visas to nationals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan.
It said there had been a surge in asylum applications by students from those countries and almost 135,000 asylum seekers in total had entered the UK using legal routes since 2021.
