St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe

St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe was born January 8, 1894. In 1910, he entered the Conventual Franciscan Order. He was sent to study in Rome where he was ordained a priest in 1918. While he was studying for the priesthood, he realized religious indifference to be the deadliest poison of the day.

To combat this indifference he started the Knights of the Immaculata and made efforts to use mass media to battle religious apathy. The mass media that Maximilian used included newspapers and magazines. In addition to his efforts at evangelization, Maximilian was a groundbreaking theologian. His insights on the Immaculate Conception anticipated some of the Marian theology of the Second Vatican Council.

In 1927, St. Maximilian had established the town of Niepolalanow, City of the Immaculata, as an evangelization center. By 1938, the City had expanded from eighteen friars to 650, making it the largest Catholic religious house in the world.

In 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland and St. Maximilian was imprisoned. He was once released, but was rearrested in 1941 and sent to Auschwitz. In retribution for a successful escape by a prisoner, the commandant chose 10 men to die. Maximilian was not chosen but he offered himself in place of a man who had a family. After two weeks of starvation, he was killed with a lethal injection. His body was taken and burned in the camp's incinerators.

Pope John Paul II canonized Maximilian as a "martyr of charity" in 1982. St. Maximilian Kolbe is a patron of journalists, families, prisoners, the pro-life movement and the chemically addicted.