Maximilian Kolbe: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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| name = Maximilian Kolbe

| honorific_suffix = [[Order of Friars Minor Conventual|OFMConv]]

| image = Fr.Maximilian Kolbe in 1936.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Kolbe in 1936

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| birth_name = Raymund Kolbe

| birth_date = {{birth date|1894|1|8|df=y}}

| birth_place = [[Zduńska Wola]], [[Congress Poland]], [[Russian Empire]]

| home_town =

| residence =

| death_date = {{death date and age|1941|8|14|1894|1|8|df=y}}

| death_place = [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz-Birkenau]], [[Gau Upper Silesia]], [[Nazi Germany]]

| venerated_in = {{ublist|[[Catholic Church]]|[[Anglican Communion]]|[[Lutheran Church]]}}

| beatified_date = 17 October 1971

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| feast_day = 14 August

| attributes = {{hlist | [[Religious habit|Franciscan habit]] | the ''[[Rycerz Niepokalanej]]'' | Nazi concentration prison uniform | [[Nazi concentration camp badge]] | [[crucifix]] | [[rosary]]}}

| patronage = prisoners, drug addicts, families, journalists, [[amateur radio]] operators, [[pro-life movement]], people with eating disorders<ref>{{Cite web |title='I would like to take his place' – DW – 08/14/2016 |url=https://www.dw.com/en/remembering-kolbe-who-stood-up-to-nazis-at-auschwitz/a-19474219 |access-date=2023-10-22 |website=[[Deutsche Welle]] |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Patron"/> <!-- WARNING: patronages MUST CORRESPOND to a reliable secondary source, per WP:RS -->

| issues =

| suppressed_date =

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{{Modern persecutions of the Catholic Church}}

'''Maximilian Kolbe''' {{post-nominals|post-noms=[[Order of Friars Minor Conventual|OFMConv]]}} (born '''Raymund Kolbe'''; {{lang-pl| Maksymilian Maria Kolbe}};{{efn|Pronounced {{IPA-|pl|maksɨˌmʲilʲan ˌmarʲja ˈkɔlbɛ|}}.}} 1894–19418 January 1894 – 14 August 1941) was a Polish [[Catholic]] priest and [[Conventual Franciscans|Conventual Franciscan]] [[friar]] who volunteered to die in place of a man named [[Franciszek Gajowniczek]] in the German [[Extermination camp|death camp]] of [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]], located in [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|German-occupied Poland]] during [[World War II]]. He had been active in promoting the veneration of the [[Immaculate Conception|Immaculate]] [[Blessed Virgin Mary|Virgin Mary]], founding and supervising the monastery of [[Niepokalanów]] near [[Warsaw]], operating an [[amateur radio|amateur-radio]] station (SP3RN), and founding or running several other organizations and publications.

On 10 October 1982, [[Pope John Paul II]] [[canonization|canonized]] Kolbe and declared him a [[martyr of charity]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kijas|first=Zdzisław Józef|date=2020|title=THE PROCESS OF BEATIFICATION AND CANONIZATION OF MAXIMILIAN MARIA KOLBE|url=http://studiaelblaskie.pl/assets/Numery/SE-tom212020.pdf#page=199|journal=Studia Elbląskie|volume=XXI|pages=199–213}}</ref> The [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic Church]] venerates him as the [[patron saint]] of amateur radio operators, drug addicts, [[political prisoner]]s, families, journalists, and prisoners.<ref>{{Cite web |title='I would like to take his place' – DW – 08/14/2016 |url=https://www.dw.com/en/remembering-kolbe-who-stood-up-to-nazis-at-auschwitz/a-19474219 |access-date=2023-10-22 |website=[[Deutsche Welle]] |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Patron"/> John Paul II declared him "the patron of our difficult century".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Biniaz |first=Benjamin |title=Religious Resistance in Auschwitz: The Sacrifice of Saint Kolbe |url=https://sfi.usc.edu/news/2016/08/12019-religious-resistance-auschwitz-sacrifice-saint-kolbe |access-date=2023-10-22 |website=[[USC Shoah Foundation]] |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Holy Mass at the Brzezinka Concentration Camp"/> His feast day is 14 August, the day of his [[martyrdom]].

Due to Kolbe's efforts to promote [[consecration and entrustment to Mary]], he is known as an "apostle of consecration to Mary".<ref name="ArmstrongPeterson2010-51"/>

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Raymund Kolbe was born on 8 January 1894 in [[Zduńska Wola]], in the [[Congress Poland|Kingdom of Poland]], which was then part of the [[Russian Empire]]. He was the second son of [[Weaver (occupation)|weaver]] Julius Kolbe and [[Midwifery|midwife]] Maria Dąbrowska.<ref name="psb296"/> His father was an [[ethnic German]],<ref name="Strzelecka1984"/> and his mother was [[Polish people|Polish]]. He had four brothers, two of whom died of tuberculosis. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to [[Pabianice]].<ref name="psb296"/>

Kolbe's life was strongly influenced in 19061903, when he was 129, by a vision of the [[Virgin Mary]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dewar |first=Diana |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=39hsAAAAIAAJ |title=Saint of Auschwitz: The Story of Maximilian Kolbe |date=1982 |publisher=Harper & Row |isbn=978-0-06-061901-5 |pages=115 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Patron"/> He later described this incident:

<blockquote>That night I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.<ref name="ArmstrongPeterson2010-50"/></blockquote>

==Franciscan friar==

In 1907, Kolbe and his elder brother Francis joined the [[Conventual Franciscans]].<ref name=catholic-pages/> They enrolled at the Conventual Franciscan minor seminary in [[Lviv|Lwów]] later that year. In 1910, Kolbe was allowed to enter the [[novitiate]], where he chose a religious name Maximilian. He professed his [[first vows]] in 1911, and [[final vows]] in 1914,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dewar |first=Diana |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=39hsAAAAIAAJ |title=Saint of Auschwitz: The Story of Maximilian Kolbe |date=1982 |publisher=Harper & Row |isbn=978-0-06-061901-5 |pages=36 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Patron"/> adopting the additional name of Maria (Mary).<ref name="psb296"/>

===World War I===

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===Missionary work in Asia===

Between 1930 and 1936, Kolbe undertook a series of [[mission (Christian)|missions]] to [[East Asia]]. He arrived first in [[Shanghai]], [[China]], but failed to gather a following there.<ref name="psb296"/> Next he moved to [[Japan]], where by 1931 he had founded a [[Order of Friars Minor Conventual|Franciscan monastery]], ''Mugenzai no Sono''( {{lang|ja|無原罪の園}}), on the outskirts of [[Nagasaki]].

Kolbe had started publishing a Japanese edition of the ''Knight of the Immaculata'' ({{transliteration|ja|Mugenzai no Seibo no Kishi}}: {{lang|ja|無原罪の聖母の騎士}}).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dewar |first=Diana |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=39hsAAAAIAAJ |title=Saint of Auschwitz: The Story of Maximilian Kolbe |date=1982 |publisher=Harper & Row |isbn=978-0-06-061901-5 |pages=70 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Patron"/><ref name="psb296"/><ref name=ewtn/> The monastery he founded remains prominent in the Roman Catholic Church in Japan.<ref name="Patron"/>{{self-published source|date=October 2022}} Kolbe had the monastery built on a mountainside. According to [[Shinto]] beliefs, this was not the side best suited to be in harmony with nature. However, when the United States dropped the [[Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|atomic bomb on Nagasaki]], the Franciscan monastery survived, unlike the [[Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Nagasaki|Immaculate Conception Cathedral]], the latter having been on the side of the mountain that took the main force of the blast.<ref name="guardian"/>

In mid-1932, Kolbe left Japan for [[Malabar region|Malabar]], [[India]], where he founded another monastery, which has since closed.<ref name="Patron"/>

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According to an eyewitness, who was an assistant janitor at that time, in his prison cell Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After they had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only Kolbe and three others remained alive.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zdzisław |first=Kijas |date=2020 |title=The Process of Beatification and Canonization of Maximilian Maria Kolbe |url=https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1077602 |journal=Studia Elbląskie |language=English |issue=21 |pages=199–214 |issn=1507-9058}}</ref>

The guards wanted the bunker emptied, so they gave the four remaining prisoners lethal injections of [[phenol|carbolic acid]]. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for the deadly injection.<ref name="ewtn"/> He died on 14 August 1941. HisHe remains werewas cremated on 15 August, the [[calendar of saints|feast day]] of the [[Assumption of Mary]].<ref name="psb297"/>

==Canonization==

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Kolbe's alleged antisemitism was a source of controversy in the 1980s in the aftermath of his [[canonization]].<ref name="Yallop2012"/> In 1926, in the first issue of the monthly ''Knight of the Immaculate'', Kolbe said he considered Freemasons "as an organized clique of fanatical Jews, who want to destroy the church."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1982/12/05/mass-is-set-for-the-saint-of-auschwitz/18a930db-756e-4f7c-a484-399305713a29/ |title=Mass Is Set For the Saint Of Auschwitz |author=Joyce Wadler |date=5 December 1982 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref> In a 1924 column, he cited the ''[[Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'' as an "important proof" that "the founders of Zionism intended, in fact, the subjugation of the entire world", but that "not even all Jews know this".<ref>{{cite web |title=Czy prawda się zmienia? |url=https://pisma.niepokalanow.pl/967-czy-prawda-sie-zmienia}}</ref> In a calendar that the publishing house of his organization, the Militia of the Immaculate, published in an edition of a million in 1939, Kolbe wrote, "Atheistic Communism seems to rage ever more wildly. Its origin can easily be located in that criminal mafia that calls itself Freemasonry, and the hand that is guiding all that toward a clear goal is international Zionism. Which should not be taken to mean that even among Jews one cannot find good people."<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |author=Henry Kamm |date=19 November 1982 |title=Saint Charged with Bigotry; Clerics Say No |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/19/world/saint-charged-with-bigotry-clerics-say-no.html}}</ref> Newspapers he published printed articles about topics such as a [[Zionism|Zionist]] plot for world domination.<ref name="Dershowitz1992"/><ref name="jta"/><ref name="Michael2008"/> Slovenian philosopher [[Slavoj Žižek]] criticized Kolbe's activities as "writing and organizing mass propaganda for the Catholic Church, with a clear anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic edge."<ref name=jta/><ref name="Zizek2012"/> However, these allegations of antisemitism have been denounced by [[Holocaust studies|Holocaust scholars]] Daniel L. Schlafly Jr. and Warren Green among others.<ref name="jta" /> A number of writers pointed out that the "Jewish question played a very minor role in Kolbe's thought and work."<ref name="jta" /><ref name="BeckyReady" /> Only thirty-one out of over 14,000 of his letters reference the Jewish people or Judaism, and most express a missionary zeal and concern for their spiritual welfare.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/was-st-maximilian-kolbe-an-antisemite-1068 |title=Was St. Maximilian Kolbe an Anti-Semite? |author=Becky Ready |newspaper=[[EWTN]]}}</ref>

During World War II, Kolbe's monastery at Niepokalanów [[Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust|sheltered Jewish refugees]].<ref name=jta/> According to the testimony of a local, "When Jews came to me asking for a piece of bread, I asked Father Maximilian if I could give it to them in good conscience, and he answered me, 'Yes, it is necessary to do this because all men are our brothers.{{'"}}<ref name="BeckyReady"/>

=== Relics===