The Polish Franciscan Father, who became famous for the substitutive sacrifice of his life, when he offered himself to the German death machine at Auschwitz in the stead of a family man.
But before that end to his life, he was a conventual Franciscan (1910), and founder of the Militia Immaculatae (1917) against the freemasonic forces than boldly challenged the popes around the time of the first World War. From that title we realise his great devotion to the Immaculate, who had only just appeared to the little shepherd-children of Fátima, in Portugal. He tried his best to spread this devotion.
In so doing, he became an early master of evangelisation using the media, establishing a religious press in the 1920s, and a daily newspaper in the 1930s, and even a radio station (1938).
The Germans did not like him, but respected his German ancestry, and he was allowed to run a diminished ministry from his friary at Niepokalanów. He and his collaborators managed to save many Jewish lives. However, he was arrested with other friars in 1941 and transported to Auschwitz, where he was badly beaten, but continued a religious ministry to his fellow-inmates. And then came the sacrifice that has defined him to millions of Catholics today.
Learn more about Father Kolbe.
S. Maksymilian Kolbe, pray for us, and draw us to the Immaculata.
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 