VANCOUVER—A soft-spoken activist from Vancouver Island has become a pro-life celebrity with thousands of fans in Poland.
Mary Wagner, originally from Nanaimo, was welcomed in October as a hero for facing jail time in defence of the unborn.
“The time in Poland was very special and indeed very blessed,” Wagner said humbly. She gave 50 talks in crowded halls, on radio, and on live television. She also attended Nie O Mary Wagner movie premieres and met Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow.
Jacek Kotula, a member of Fundacja PRO – Prawo Do Zycia, planned the visit. “I first read about Mary Wagner a year ago in the Catholic weekly newspaper Gosc Niedzielny,” he explained.
He read that a woman was serving time for offering counselling and handing out roses at an abortion clinic in Toronto, and that it wasn’t her first time in jail. He found a mailing address and began a correspondence with her.
Kotula wasn’t the only Pole moved by Wagner’s story: a petition started by activist Karol Wyszynski gained more than 26,000 signatures demanding her freedom.
Wagner was released in June after spending 22 months behind bars. That’s when Kotula invited her halfway across the planet. “I asked her to tell Poles what to do so the same (abortion situation) would not happen in Poland. They needed Mary’s witness.”
He considers it a success. Large crowds attended her talks and she made headlines in some of the country’s biggest Catholic papers. At Nie O Mary Wagner, a documentary with an ironic title (it means “Not About Mary Wagner,”) the theatre was packed.
“The Canadian abortion horror is something one can hardly comprehend,” said filmmaker Gregorz Braun, commenting on the fact that there are no laws against the practice.
“In Poland, the situation seems to be slightly better: we have an abortion law parallel to the one they had in the Third Reich.”
Kotula explained: abortion in Poland is limited to cases of rape, danger to the mother’s life, or serious illness of the child.
“In Poland the pro-abortion lobby is going after ‘liberalization’ of abortion as a ‘European standard’ and a ‘basic right of a woman.’ At the same time there is a firestorm of propaganda attacking doctors, midwives, and defenders of life.”
Wagner, who returned home and is devoting much of her time to prayer, said it wasn’t only Polish activists who drew encouragement from her tour.
“Meeting some bishops and so many priests, religious, and lay people so alive in their faith was edifying and has left a deep impression on me.”
The first English screening of Nie O Mary Wagner is scheduled for Jan. 18 in Mississauga, Ont.
