Radio Maria is not anti-Semitic, it does not propagate National Democratic (a pre-WWII nationalist party) ideology, and the type of piety it promotes is deep and authentic and not ritualistic, collectivistic, or superficial.

            These were the conclusions reached by a group of sociologists from Warsaw University who, under the direction of Professor Ireneusz Krzemiñski, investigated the station’s broadcasts to its listeners in August, 2007. The conclusions, published in book form under the title What Does Radio Maria Teach Us? (Czego nas uczy Radio Maryja? Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Akademickie i Profesjonaslne, 2009), caused a shakeup of many stereotypes which, for years, have created the negative PR regarding Father Tadeusz Rydzyk’s radio station.

            The stereotypes were broadcast and picked up regularly by liberals and Jewish controlled media throughout the Western world. Some scholars also accepted them as facts not to be challenged. It fitted another negative image, that of today’s Poland being anti-Semitic.

            The book’s authors analyzed all Radio Maria transmissions in August, 2007, a month abounding in religious and patriotic festivities, and in which the annual commemoration of the Warsaw Uprising and the “Miracle on the Vistula” (Poland’s defeat of Soviet Russia in 1920) is observed. Based on this analysis, they formed an opinion about Radio Maria’s vision of the world and the Church.

             “As the author of this analysis I must admit that I began with the hypothesis that Radio Maria’s religiosity was … superficial, ritualistic and traditional in its form,” stated Professor Krzemiñski.

             “Our examination of Father Rydzyk’s broadcasts provides proof that its listeners present, express, and describe a religiosity which in all certainty is testimony of an authentic religious experience. Those who pray and talk about their prayers are people who have witnessed an authentic faith experience, and Radio Maria broadcasts provide insight into such experiences, while providing an opportunity to deepen one’s faith,” the sociologist adds.

            The authors singled out the liberal paper Gazeta Wyborcza is being a main source for the enmity against Radio Maria.

             “The articles in Gazeta Wyborcza were published with the intention of marginalizing Radio Maria by portraying it as a radical centre of lost, utopian right-wingers and nationalists, of discrediting it by associating its activities with the activities of the prewar extreme right, and also of ridiculing it by publishing selected quotes from listeners and radio editors,” states Wojciech Mazan.