| Written by Carolyn Girard, The Catholic Register,
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 TORONTO - After the communist regime in Poland instituted martial law in 1981, Fr. Antoni Mendrela collaborated with other church and government officials in Canada to help out beleaguered Poles in two ways — by raising money to fund the Catholic University of Lublin, and getting Canadian parishes to sponsor emigrating Poles.
For this, he was awarded Poland’s Officer’s Cross for Service. The award was presented to Mendrela in the name of Polish President Lech Kaczynskiat at the Catholic University of Lublin in January.
The Officer’s Cross is awarded to foreign nationals residing abroad and Polish citizens who have contributed to international co-operation between foreign states and Poland.
“Somehow I was the one who co-ordinated it,” Mendrela said humbly of his efforts. “It was a team effort, but I happened to be involved as Provincial (of the Oblates in Canada).”
Although he was born, raised, ordained and taught math and science in Poland until the 1970s, Mendrela came to Canada with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, where he served as assistant pastor at St. Casimir’s Church in Toronto from 1972 to 1978 and then as chaplain of the Polish Combatants’ Association of Canada until 1981. It was during this year that Poles experienced their largest internal military take-over, including sealed borders, limited telephone access and suspended TV and radio transmissions. Thousands of activists with the Solidarity union, the de facto opposition to the communists, were imprisoned. Although martial law was ended in 1983, civil liberties continued to be restricted well into the late ’80s.
“They said ‘we are trying to raise people without faith,’ ” Mendrela said.
This is why sending money to the Catholic University of Lublin was so crucial during that time, he added.
“This was the only university teaching priests and persons, teaching things like theology and literature,” he said.
Mendrela and the Polish Canadian Congress pressured the Canadian government to loosen immigration requirements for Polish immigrants. The result enabled churches to sponsor Polish immigrants in great numbers. A single parish in the Toronto area, for example, sponsored as many as 300 families during that time.
Mendrela’s involvement with immigrant Poles became more pronounced in 1984 when he became Provincial Superior of the Oblates in Canada, serving two terms until 1990. He worked closely with ShareLife, the charitable fund-raising arm of the archdiocese of Toronto, the Polish Canadian Congress, parishes and individuals who raised more than a million dollars in donations for the university. Mendrela was also involved in establishing two Polish parishes: Our Lady Queen of Poland in Edmonton and St. Maximilian Kolbe in Mississauga.
As a native of Poland, Mendrela said it was natural for him to get involved with the various organizations seeking to help. He could not return to Poland because he would have to renounce his Polish citizenship in order to get an entry visa — something he did not want to do.
Mendrela helped organize the 1984 papal visit with Toronto’s Polish community and from then until 1990 served as chair of the Polish Priests’ Conference of Eastern Canada. He has most recently been stationed at St. Mary’s Polish parish, built in Toronto during the First World War, which celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2005.
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