Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Today the Church celebrates the memory of Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe.

Ordained at age 24 as a Conventual Franciscan, Father Kolbe saw religious indifference as the most serious problem (even poison) of the day. He devoted himself was to combat it. He was inspired to found the Crusade of Mary Immaculate (Militia Immaculatae) to fight evil with the witness of the good life, prayer, work, and suffering. He later began a magazine (Knight of the Immaculata), which eventually reached a circulation of over one million. Father Kolbe also initiated other publishing ventures and, eventually, a radio station.

As a scholar, he earned doctorates in philosophy and theology. He was also deeply interested in science. He drew plans for rocket ships, and he had an interest in fire apparatus.

In 1939 the Nazis overran Poland. Father Kolbe and the friars at his monastery were arrested. They released in less than three months, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. In 1941 he was arrested again as part of a Nazi campaign to get rid of leaders, and he was sent to Auschwitz.

One day, after a prisoner escaped, the camp commandant announced that ten men would die as a punishment. He picked several to send to the starvation bunkers, and one man, Number 16670, stepped from the line and stated, “I would like to take that man’s place. He has a wife and children.”

“Who are you?” the commandant asked.

The man simply replied, “A priest.”

The commandant took Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek out of line and ordered Father Kolbe to go with the other nine. Several days later, on the eve of the Assumption, four of the men were still alive. The jailer injected them with carbolic acid to finish the job.

Maximilian Mary Kolbe was beatified in 1971 and canonized in 1982 (Francis Gajowniczek was present at his canonization). He is the patron saint of media communications.

For more information about his life, please visit:

Catholic-Pages: Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Jewish Virtual Library: Maximilian Kolbe

Catholic Online: St. Maximilian Kolbe and the Theological Virtue of Hope (13 AUG 12)

There is a shrine in Libertyville, Illinois, dedicated to Saint Maximilian:

National Shrine of Saint Maximilian Kolbe

One of the shrines Father Kolbe had founded, the “Garden of the Immaculate,” was located in Nagasaki, the site of one of of the two atomic bomb blasts that hastened the end of World War II.

For a good reflection related to this, please read:

CatholicCulture: The Catholic Holocaust of Nagasaki - “Why, Lord?”