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Mary Wagner

MILTON, Ontario, December 18, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Pro-life prisoner of conscience Mary Wagner’s Advent letter of thanks and encouragement from jail reached an international audience with its publication in a Polish daily newspaper.

Wagner was arrested December 8 at the Women’s Care Center, at 960 Lawrence Avenue West in Toronto, while attempting to persuade women to choose life for their unborn babies.

She was charged with mischief and two counts of breach of probation.

Wagner will remain in jail until her trial — which may not be for some months — because she cannot in conscience sign bail conditions that require her to stay away from abortion centers.

Her December 11 letter was translated into Polish, posted on a Polish-language Facebook page dedicated to her, and published in Nasz Dziennik, a Warsaw-based daily, which also carried news of her arrest.

The 43-year-old Catholic, who has spent four years, eight months and counting behind bars for her peaceful and prayerful attempts to rescue women and unborn babies from the violence of abortion, is virtually ignored by the Canadian mainstream media.

However, she is so highly regarded in Poland she could be accurately described as a national heroine.

Wagner told Dorothy Cummings MacLean in an interview from jail in 2015 that she began receiving her first letters from Poland in 2012, after her story was published there and people were shocked to read the trial judge, Justice S. Ford Clements, had told her: “You’re wrong and your God is wrong.”

Clements also sentenced Wagner to the maximum penalty of six months in jail for mischief, even though Crown attorney Derek Ishak and Wagner’s lawyer, Russell Browne, jointly asking that the sentence be lessened.

In the fall of 2014, Wagner was invited on a nationwide tour of the predominantly Catholic country and its many shrines, notably Our Lady of Częstochowa, and given red-carpet treatment wherever she went.

She was invited back in 2016 by the Polish Right to Life Foundation to take part in World Youth Day in Kraków that July.

A number of Polish bishops have spoken up in her defence, there has been a Polish-language documentary produced about her called “Not About Mary”, a stamp issued in Poland featuring a picture of her behind bars, and in January 2015, the Polish Right to Life Foundation organized a protest of her incarceration in which 150 people demonstrated outside the Canadian embassy in Warsaw.

Wagner is scheduled for a preliminary court appearance at 1000 Finch on December 21 via video from Vanier jail.

Her mailing address is: Vanier Center for Women, 655 Martin St., Milton, ON L9T 5E6

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Here is the text of Wagner’s letter:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Our Life,

Peace be with you on this eve of Our Lady of Guadalupe! I received messages from many of you that you are praying for me. Thank you! Thank you for your prayers now and on December 8th, especially those dear ones who were present at the killing place that morning. We arrived at St. Charles Borromeo before 8:00 a.m. Mass and I noticed a single light from the side of the building where the babies are killed. It was from one of the rooms at the killing place. To my left was the killing place, and to my right, the church where we pray and where Jesus is sheltered. Outside, the life sized creche, awaiting the Christ Child — the symbol of the Word made Flesh, who dwells among us in the church and in the littlest of human beings. The word of God, from Deuteronomy comes to mind: “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now chose life, so that you and your children may live, and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life…” (Dr 30110-20) Later, when the police came, we asked them to help us protect the babies…They removed us, and when I asked two of them what would happen if they let me go, they said they would be charged with “neglect of duty.” Let us pray that all God’s children would understand that our primary duty is to Our Master. We are his servants. Let us not be found in neglect of our duty to Him. Lord lead us to repentance.

In communion at prayer,

Mary

***

The letter as translated in Polish:

Drodzy Bracia i Siostry w Chrystusie naszym Życiu,

Pokój niech będzie z wami w tę wigilię uroczystości Matki Bożej z Guadalupe! Otrzymałem wiadomości od wielu z was, że modlicie się za mnie. Dziękuję Wam! Dziękuję wam za wasze modlitwy teraz i 8 grudnia, szczególnie tym, którzy byli rano w tym dniu (8 grudnia) w miejscu zabijania dzieci. Przybyliśmy do kościoła św. Karola Boromeusza przede Mszą o godz. 8 rano i zauważyłam pojedyncze światło od strony budynku, w którym dzieci są zabijane. To był jeden z pokoi w miejscu aborcji. Po mojej lewej stronie było miejsce zabijania, a po mojej prawej stronie kościół, w którym modlimy się i gdzie Jezus jest chroniony. Na zewnątrz, żłóbek, oczekujący na Dzieciątko Jezus – symbol Słowa, które stało się Ciałem, które mieszka między nami w kościele i najmłodszych ludzkich istotach. Przychodzi na myśl Słowo Boże z Księgi Powtórzonego Prawa: ” Kładę przed wami życie i śmierć, błogosławieństwo i przekleństwo. Wybierajcie więc życie, abyście żyli wy i wasze potomstwo, miłując Pana, Boga swego, słuchając Jego głosu, lgnąc do Niego; bo tu jest twoje życie „ (Pwt, 30,19-20). Później, kiedy przyszła policja, poprosiliśmy ich, aby pomogli nam chronić dzieci … Oni nas usunęli, a kiedy ja zapytałam dwóch z nich, co by się stało, gdyby mnie puścili, powiedzieli, że zostaną oskarżeni o “zaniedbanie obowiązku”. Módlmy się, aby wszystkie dzieci Boże zrozumiały, że naszym podstawowym obowiązkiem jest nasz Mistrz. Jesteśmy jego sługami. Nie zaniedbujmy naszego obowiązku wobec Niego. Pan prowadzi nas do nawrócenia.

W duchowej bliskości w modlitwie,

Mary

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