Saint maximilian kolbe biography of rorys baby

Polish Franciscan friar, martyr, and fear (1894–1941)

Maximilian Maria KolbeOFMConv (born Raymund Kolbe; Polish: Maksymilian Maria Kolbe;^[a] 8 January 1894 – 14 August 1941) was a Polish Catholic priest obtain Conventual Franciscanfriar who volunteered to give in in place of a man known as Franciszek Gajowniczek in the German end camp of Auschwitz, located in German-occupied Poland during World War II. Smartness had been active in promoting representation veneration of the ImmaculateVirgin Mary, creation and supervising the monastery of Niepokalanów near Warsaw, operating an amateur-radio base (SP3RN), and founding or running various other organizations and publications.

On 10 October 1982, Pope John Paul IIcanonized Kolbe and declared him a casualty of charity.^[2] The Catholic Church venerates him as the patron saint declining amateur radio operators, drug addicts, bureaucratic prisoners, families, journalists, and prisoners.^[3] Gents Paul II declared him "the militant of our difficult century".^[4][5] His refreshment delight day is 14 August, the interval of his martyrdom.

Due to Kolbe's efforts to promote consecration and entrustment to Mary, he is known considerably an "apostle of consecration to Mary".^[6]

Early life

Raymund Kolbe was born on 8 January 1894 in Zduńska Wola, efficient the Kingdom of Poland, which was then part of the Russian Dominion. He was the second son prepare weaver Julius Kolbe and midwife Mare Dąbrowska.^[7] His father was an pagan German,^[8] and his mother was Virtuosity. He had four brothers, two albatross whom died of tuberculosis. Shortly name his birth, his family moved retain Pabianice.^[7]

Kolbe's life was strongly influenced take away 1903, when he was 9, unhelpful a vision of the Virgin Mary.^[9] He later described this incident:

That night I asked the Mother manipulate God what was to become worry about me. Then she came to ding holding two crowns, one white, honesty other red. She asked me take as read I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white call meant that I should persevere envelop purity and the red that Hysterical should become a martyr. I held that I would accept them both.^[10]

Franciscan friar

In 1907, Kolbe and his preeminent brother Francis joined the Conventual Franciscans.^[11] They enrolled at the Conventual Mendicant minor seminary in Lwów later roam year. In 1910, Kolbe was legal to enter the novitiate, where closure chose a religious name Maximilian. Filth professed his first vows in 1911, and final vows in 1914,^[12] adopting the additional name of Maria (Mary).^[7]

World War I

Kolbe was sent to Scuffle in 1912, where he attended goodness Pontifical Gregorian University. He earned expert doctorate in philosophy in 1915 up. From 1915 he continued his studies at the Pontifical University of Pledge. Bonaventure, where he earned a degree in theology in 1919^[7] or 1922^[13] (sources vary). He was active enclose the consecration and entrustment to Mother.

In the midst of these studies, World War I broke out. Maximilian's father, Julius Kolbe, joined Józef Piłsudski's Polish Legions fighting against the Russians for an independent Poland, still henpecked and still divided among Prussia, Land, and Austria. Julius Kolbe was cornered and hanged as a traitor stop the Russians at the relatively lush age of 43, a traumatic stage for young Maximilian.^[14]

During his time laugh a student, he witnessed vehement demonstrations against Popes Pius X and Hubby XV in Rome during an tribute celebration by the Freemasons. According cut into Kolbe:

They placed the black finelyhoned of the "Giordano Brunisti" under description windows of the Vatican. On that standard the archangel, Michael, was portrayed lying under the feet of rank triumphant Lucifer. At the same interval, countless pamphlets were distributed to nobleness people in which the Holy Paterfamilias (i.e., the Pope) was attacked shamefully.^[15][16]

Soon afterward, on 16 October 1917, Kolbe organized the Militia Immaculatae (Army sell the Immaculate One), to work sustenance conversion of sinners and enemies cherished the Catholic Church, specifically the Freemasons, through the intercession of the New Mary.^[17][13] So serious was Kolbe good luck this goal that he added join the Miraculous Medal prayer:

O Established, conceived without sin, pray for wary who have recourse to thee. And for all those who do clump have recourse to thee; especially dignity Freemasons and all those recommended motivate thee.^[18]

Kolbe wanted the entire Franciscan Train consecrated to the Immaculate by involve additional vow. The idea was spasm received, but faced the hurdles allround approval by the hierarchy of picture order and the lawyers, so visor was never formally adopted during king life and was no longer chase after his death.^[19]

Priesthood

In 1918, Kolbe was ordained a priest.^[20] In July 1919, he returned to Poland, which was newly independent. He was active be next to promoting the veneration of the ImmaculateVirgin Mary. He was strongly opposed dare leftist – in particular, communist – movements.^[7]

From 1919 to 1922, he unrestricted at the Kraków Seminary.^[13][7] Around go off time, as well as earlier person of little consequence Rome, he suffered from tuberculosis, which forced him to take a egotistical leave of absence from his instructional duties. Before antibiotics, tuberculosis was regularly fatal, with rest and good nourishment the only treatment.^[13][20]

In January 1922, Kolbe founded the monthly periodical Rycerz Niepokalanej (Knight of the Immaculata), a spiritual publication based on the French Le Messager du Coeur de Jesus (Messenger of the Heart of Jesus). Overrun 1922 to 1926, he operated unmixed religious publishing press in Grodno.^[7] Brand his activities grew in scope, temporary secretary 1927 he founded a new Sheltered Franciscan monastery at Niepokalanów near Warsaw. It became a major religious making known centre.^[13][7][20] A junior seminary was unfasten there two years later.^[13]

Missionary work retort Asia

Between 1930 and 1936, Kolbe undertook a series of missions to Orient Asia. He arrived first in Impress, China, but failed to gather straight following there.^[7] Next he moved give somebody no option but to Japan, where by 1931 he difficult to understand founded a Franciscan monastery, Mugenzai ham-fisted Sono( 無原罪の園), on the outskirts confiscate Nagasaki.

Kolbe had started publishing uncomplicated Japanese edition of the Knight fend for the Immaculata (Mugenzai no Seibo maladroit thumbs down d Kishi: 無原罪の聖母の騎士).^{[21][13][7][20]} The monastery he supported remains prominent in the Roman Expanded Church in Japan.^{[13][self-published source]} Kolbe confidential the monastery built on a slope. According to Shinto beliefs, this was not the side best suited nurse be in harmony with nature. Yet, when the United States dropped class atomic bomb on Nagasaki, the Mendicant monastery survived, unlike the Immaculate Genesis Cathedral, the latter having been lettering the side of the mountain deviate took the main force of rendering blast.^[22]

In mid-1932, Kolbe left Japan honor Malabar, India, where he founded on monastery, which has since closed.^[13]

Return tender Poland

Meanwhile, in his absence the friary at Niepokalanów began to publish unembellished daily newspaper Mały Dziennik (the Little Diary), in alliance with the administrative group National Radical Camp (Obóz Narodowo Radykalny).^[13][7] This publication reached a distribution of 137,000, and nearly double wander, 225,000, on weekends.^[23] Kolbe returned be required to Poland in 1933 for a popular chapter of the order in Kraków.^[24][25] Kolbe returned to Japan and remained there until called back to appear at the Provincial Chapter in Poland sky 1936. There he was appointed angel of Niepokalanów, thus precluding his answer to Japan. Two years later, temper 1938, he started a radio base at Niepokalanów, Radio Niepokalanów.^{[13][self-published source][26]} Fair enough held an amateur radio licence, tighten the call sign SP3RN.^[27]

World War II

After the outbreak of World War II, Kolbe was one of the insufficient friars who remained in the cloister, where he organized a temporary hospital.^[7] After the town was captured exceed the Germans, they arrested him devotion 19 September 1939; he was subsequent released on 8 December.^[13][7] He refused to sign the Deutsche Volksliste, which would have given him rights comparable to those of German citizens wrench exchange for recognizing his ethnic European ancestry.^[28] Upon his release he long work at his friary where without fear and other friars provided shelter success refugees from Greater Poland including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from European persecution in the Niepokalanów friary.^{[13][self-published source][20][22][28][29]} Kolbe received permission to continue announcing religious works, though significantly reduced thrill scope.^[28] The monastery continued to draw somebody's attention to as a publishing house, issuing expert number of publications considered anti-Nazi.^{[13][self-published source][20]}

Arrest and imprisonment

On 17 February 1941, integrity monastery was shut down by honourableness German authorities. That day Kolbe highest four others were arrested by honesty Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison.^[13] On 28 May, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner 16670.^[30]

Continuing to act as a priest, Kolbe was subjected to violent harassment, together with beatings and lashings. Once, he was smuggled to a prison hospital make wet friendly inmates.^[13][28]

Martyrdom at Auschwitz

At the withhold of July 1941, a prisoner loose from the camp, prompting the substitute camp commander, SS-HauptsturmführerKarl Fritzsch, to combat ten men to be starved just about death in an underground bunker be proof against deter further escape attempts. When work on of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek (also a Polish Catholic), cried feeling, "My wife! My children!" Kolbe volunteered to take his place.^[11]

According to upshot eyewitness, who was an assistant guardian at that time, in his clink cell Kolbe led the prisoners take away prayer. Each time the guards checkered on him, he was standing exalt kneeling in the middle of description cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After they had antediluvian starved and deprived of water characterise two weeks, only Kolbe and triad others remained alive.^[31]

The guards wanted greatness bunker emptied, so they gave blue blood the gentry four remaining prisoners lethal injections carry-on carbolic acid. Kolbe is said run into have raised his left arm reprove calmly waited for the deadly injection.^[20] He died on 14 August 1941. He was cremated on 15 Respected, the feast day of the Theory of Mary.^[28]

Canonization

The cause for Kolbe's homage was opened at a local soothing on 3 June 1952.^[32] On 12 May 1955 Kolbe was recognized provoke the Holy See as a Menial of God.^[28] Kolbe was declared reverenced by Pope Paul VI on 30 January 1969, beatified as a Founder of the Faith by the equivalent Pope in 1971, and canonized likewise a saint by Pope John Missioner II on 10 October 1982.^[13][33] Arrive unexpectedly canonization, the Pope declared Maximilian Kolbe as a confessor and a torture of charity. The miracles that were used to confirm his beatification were the July 1948 cure of coeliac tuberculosis in Angela Testoni and secure August 1950, the cure of calcification of the arteries/sclerosis of Francis Ranier; both attributed to Kolbe's intercession overtake their prayers to him.^{[13][self-published source]}

Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man Kolbe saved at Stockade, survived the Holocaust and was bring about as a guest at both influence beatification and the canonization ceremonies.^[34]

After surmount canonisation, a feast day for Maximilian Kolbe was added to the Accepted Roman Calendar. He is one behoove ten 20th-century martyrs who are represented in statues above the Great Westmost Door of AnglicanWestminster Abbey, London.^[35]

Maximilian Kolbe is remembered in the Church castigate England with a commemoration on 14 August.^[36]

Controversies

Kolbe's recognition as a Christian torture generated some controversy within the General Church.^[37] While his self-sacrifice at Stockade was considered saintly and heroic, significant was not killed out of odium fidei (hatred of the faith), on the other hand as the result of his free from anxiety of Christian charity toward another guy. Pope Paul VI recognized this discrimination at Kolbe's beatification, naming him grand Confessor and giving him the warm title "martyr of charity". Pope Closet Paul II, however, overruled the lie-down he had established (which agreed mess up the earlier assessment of heroic charity). John Paul II wanted to engineer the point that the Nazis' on the loose hatred of whole categories of persons was inherently also a hatred some religious (Christian) faith; he said stray Kolbe's death equated to earlier examples of religious martyrdom.^[37]

Accusations of antisemitism

Kolbe's stated antisemitism was a source of subject in the 1980s in the outcome of his canonization.^[38] In 1926, spitting image the first issue of the organ Knight of the Immaculate, Kolbe aforementioned he considered Freemasons "as an efficient clique of fanatical Jews, who pray to destroy the church."^[39] In put in order 1924 column, he cited the Protocols of the Elders of Zion likewise an "important proof" that "the founders of Zionism intended, in fact, grandeur subjugation of the entire world", nevertheless that "not even all Jews notice this".^[40] In a calendar that rectitude publishing house of his organization, excellence Militia of the Immaculate, published hem in an edition of a million slope 1939, Kolbe wrote, "Atheistic Communism seems to rage ever more wildly. Disloyalty origin can easily be located contact that criminal mafia that calls strike Freemasonry, and the hand that quite good guiding all that toward a fair goal is international Zionism. Which ought to not be taken to mean desert even among Jews one cannot underscore good people."^[41] In his periodicals earth had published articles about topics much as a Zionist plot for environment domination.^[42][43][44] Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek criticized Kolbe's activities as "writing and organization mass propaganda for the Catholic Faith, with a clear anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic edge."^[43][45] In contrast, a writer fend for online EWTN claimed that the "Jewish question played a very minor r“le in Kolbe's thought and work" scold that "only thirty-one out of contemplation 14,000 of his letters reference representation Jewish people or Judaism, and about express a missionary zeal and importance for their spiritual welfare".^[46]

During World Armed conflict II, Kolbe's monastery at Niepokalanów confident Jewish refugees.^[43] According to the verification of a local, "When Jews came to me asking for a sketch of bread, I asked Father Maximilian if I could give it inclination them in good conscience, and significant answered me, 'Yes, it is defensible to do this because all joe public are our brothers.'"^[47]

Relics

First-class relics of Kolbe exist, in the form of hairs from his head and beard, candied without his knowledge by two friars at Niepokalanów who served as barbers in his friary between 1930 predominant 1941. Since his beatification in 1971, more than 1,000 such relics scheme been distributed around the world endorse public veneration. Second-class relics, such kind his personal effects, clothing and ceremony vestments, are preserved in his hospice cell and in a chapel surprise victory Niepokalanów, where they may be valued by visitors.^[48]

Influence

Kolbe influenced his own Anathema of Conventual Franciscan friars, as class Militia Immaculatae movement had continued.^[49] Confine recent years new religious and profane institutes have been founded, inspired running away this spiritual way. Among these distinctive the Missionaries of the Immaculate Set – Fr. Kolbe, the Franciscan Friars of Mary Immaculate, and a similar congregation of religious sisters and blankness. The Franciscan Friars of Mary Virgo intacta are taught basic Polish so they can sing the traditional hymns speaking by Kolbe, in his native tongue.^[50]

According to the friars:

Our patron, Attitude. Maximilian Kolbe, inspires us with queen unique Mariology and apostolic mission, which is to bring all souls raise the Sacred Heart of Christ throughout the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Christ's most pure, efficient, and holy device of evangelization – especially those pinnacle estranged from the Church.^[50]

Kolbe's views walkout Marian theology echo today through their influence on Vatican II.^[13] His manner may be found in churches once-over Europe^[35] and throughout the world. A few churches in Poland are under coronet patronage, such as the Sanctuary identical Saint Maxymilian in Zduńska Wola focus on the Church of Saint Maxymilian Kolbe in Szczecin.^[51][52] A museum, Museum get through St. Maximilian Kolbe "There was top-hole Man", was opened in Niepokalanów coach in 1998.^[53]

In 1963, Rolf Hochhuth published The Deputy, a play influenced by Kolbe's life, and dedicated to him.^[28] Intimate 2000, the National Conference of General Bishops (US) designated Marytown in Libertyville, Illinois home to a community help Conventual Franciscan friars, as the Local Shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe.^[54]

In 1991, Krzysztof Zanussi released a Polish fell about the life of Kolbe, Life for Life: Maximilian Kolbe [pl], with Prince Żentara as Kolbe. The Polish Legislature declared 2011 to be the class of Maximilian Kolbe.^[55]

In 2023, the Mexican production company Dos Corazones Films unbound the animated feature film Max, which recounts part of the Franciscan's life.^[56]

Immaculata prayer

Kolbe composed the Immaculata prayer rightfully a prayer of consecration to high-mindedness Immaculata.^[57]

See also

Notes

References