A Letter from the "Holy Family Medical Group" to Mary Wagner and her Mother

Website of the "Holy Family Medical Group" 

Warsaw 8.01.2015

Dear Mary, 

We have learnt with great sorrow about your new imprisonment. For a simple-thinking person it is hard to believe that someone who takes the side of life of the most vulnerable human beings is seen by the system as a threat to humanity and as a criminal. We are a group of Catholic medical professionals, doctors, nurses and midwives from Warsaw, meeting regularly to share our experiences and live our faith together. We would like to thank you very much for everything you are doing to save the lives of the youngest patients. You have a more open heart to the suffering and needs of children threatened by death than many doctors.

Writing above about the ‘system’, we know that anyone of us who takes the side of conceived life can be seen that way. The system does not think, but defines what is good and what is wrong, according to principles that are often not related to the Decalogue.

There is a doctor in Warsaw, a gynaecologist and obstetrician, Prof. Bogdan Chazan, who has been protecting children’s lives for many years. On the 15 of April last year he refused to abort a sick child in the Holy Family Hospital that he was in charge of. The Professor was dismissed from the function of the director and fired under the pretext of not obeying the law, because he did not indicate to the mother another place where she could kill her baby. As soon as he was fired – on the following day – the first abortion in this hospital was done. This shows that even a presence of one doctor who listens to the voice of his conscience protected this hospital for 10 years from abortion even in cases that were permitted by the law. There were mass protests in Poland, also our group wrote two letters of protest, but they did not help and Professor Chazan was not restored to his position. During that difficult time, however, he was invited to various meetings and had opportunity to give many lectures and meet many people.

We recall your visit in Poland and meetings with you. Thanks to such advocates of life, ordinary people open their eyes and hearts. We hope that even if the law does not change, thanks to such meetings, someday there will be far less doctors who agree to perform an abortion. When doctors were looked for in Poland to kill the child of  14-year-old Agata, according to the law that allows abortion in case of rape (which actually did not take place) – many doctors in Lublin and in Warsaw declined. Unfortunately, the minister of health found doctors in Gdańsk, who performed the abortion.

That is why you, Mary, are a shout, a reminder – especially for our medical group - that we were created to love and we are supposed to act with love towards other people, especially the vulnerable and the defenseless. The God of life is still rejected and many doctors have a special contribution to this. We are asking you to pray that God does not permit the criterion of usefulness to be the determinant of our decisions and actions, as we can very often observe in society.

We thank you very much for your determination and your love towards other people and Christ. Your imprisonment just before Christmas has also a symbolic meaning. It is God’s plea for shelter in human hearts, to see Little Jesus and let Him be born, because he is God’s child. Thinking about the special role of the Mother of God during Christmas time, we can rejoice with Jesus’ presence in our lives. We see that also today God chooses hands, hearts and eyes so he can come as a little child. We thank you for your response and for your love towards other people. We promise to remember you in our prayers. Many people in Poland are praying for you. We want to have as much faith, courage and love as you. Only when we meet reality, do we see how difficult it is.

We, Polish doctors, ask you to remember about us in your prayers and to pray for faith, hope and love so we can protect the ones that need us. We hope that the Lord will give you all the graces you need to survive this hard time and He will reinforce your faith and love.

God bless you!

p.s. Mary, please, pass these few words from us to your dear Mum, thanks to whom you are here with us.

Mary before the room of St. Faustyna Kowalska

Dear Jane, loving mother of Mary

Primarily we want to thank you very much for Mary, that we could meet her in Warsaw and for your other twelve children. We are conscious and are very happy that thanks to your maternal love, your parenting efforts and passing of the Christian faith, ethics and spirituality in your family, Mary is so open to others and to love. Some people from our community had the chance to talk with Mary in Warsaw. That is why we know that only a few doctors support her officially in Canada. That is why we, the Polish doctors, support her actions. You said it beautifully, Jane: giving God to others by her gentleness and her praying presence. She is like a small lantern behind bars.

It is very uplifting that Mary does not do anything to be a light but she brings a light. She brings Mary, the Mother of God closer to us because she brought the light of God by accepting Jesus in the Immaculate Conception. We are happy that Mary has such a big support and acceptance of her way of life from her own loving mother. Poland is a country that is mostly open to life but unfortunately it sometimes happens that the mother is the one that makes her daughter to abort after she gets pregnant with her boyfriend. It is a very painful experience. That is why we thank you for the fact that in your family reigns the only Love that will survive everything. Your love now spreads not only to your daughter but also is a great support for us to make good and to protect children’s lives in Poland.

Thank you, both of you, Mary and your Mom, for the care for the life of the child of Mary’s prison mate. We are going to pray, especially on the 8 of January, during our group’s Mass, and individually – hoping that Lord will show his power and mercy. Mary, we are with you! We are happy that you are a witness of God’s love in prison.

Doctors and nurses from Holy Family Medical Group

www.srodowiskomedyczne.pl 03-628 Poland, Warsaw

ul. Rozwadowska 9/11 mail: grazyna.rybak@op.pl

1. Grażyna Rybak, MD, pediatrics specialist
2. Grażyna Zofia Rojek, MD, internal medicine specialist and rheumatology
3. Teresa Miszczyk, MD, otolaryngologist, ENT specialist
4. Stanislaw Nitek, MD, tolaryngologist, ENT specialist
5. Katarzyna Nitek, MD, pulmonology specialist
6. Bogumiła Sawicka, MD, specialist in psychiatry
7. Anna Rutowska, MD, internal medicine specialist
8. Maria Jakubiak, MD, specialist in family medicine, pediatrics specialist
9. Ewa Obertyńska –Romanowska, MD, specialist in gynecology and obstetrics
10. Ewa Górecka, MD, specialist ophthalmologist
11. Iwona Daniluk, MD, specialist pediatric hematology and oncology
12. Maria Kozera, MD, specialist pediatric surgery
13. Anna Michnowska, MD, internal medicine specialist
14. Magdalena Witowicz, MD, internal medicine specialist, cancer specialist
15. Jerzy Leszczyński, MD, surgery specialist
16. Beata Leszczyńska, MD, specialist nephrologists
17. Ewa Lech –Szymerska, MD, internal medicine specialist
18. Małgorzata Kępińska, MD, pediatrics and neonatology specialist
19. Marlena Błazik, MD, pediatrics specialist
20. Mariola Sienkiewicz, MA, master of midwifery
21. Małgorzata Babińska, MA,  master of midwifery
22. Katarzyna Kowalska, MA, master of pharmacy
23. Barbara Belcarz, MA, master of pharmacy
24. Karolina Gramuza, MA, Master of laboratory diagnostics
25. Paulina Mech, MA, master of nursing
26. Łukasz Mech, husband
27. Anna Żochowska, lecturer, pediatrics and neonatology specialist
28. Ewa Tywanek, trainee doctor
29. Mateusz Tywanek, trainee doctor
30. Fr. Andrzej Mazański, Pastor of Holy Family Parish , Spritual Director,