Saint Kolbe Calumnies Answered Foster

Mary’s Knight: The Mission And Martyrdom Of Saint Maksymilian Maria Kolbe, by Claude R. Foster. 2002

Detailed Study Soundly Refutes the Calumnies Directed Against Saint Maksimilian Kolbe

This work is very in depth. It is head and shoulders above those who write ill of Father Kolbe.

CANNED ACCUSATIONS AGAINST MAKSIMILIAN KOLBE: ANTI-SEMITISM (WHAT ELSE?)

Author Foster comments: “The bogus accusation of anti-Semitism which has been leveled at Saint Kolbe apparently stems from divorcing some of his statements in the 1920s and 1930s from the context in which they were written and of viewing them through the spectacles of the genocide of World War II.” (p. ix). Isn’t that what usually happens?

Kolbe’s naughty 1923 statements were: “Theosophy induces religious indifference while the Jehovah Witnesses and other Protestants mobilize their members with a large amount of dollars. All these parties form a battlefront against the Church. What unites these adversaries? That Socialism is directed by Jews and that they also play a leading role among the Bolsheviks, everyone knows…The Jews are also represented in Theosophy…The leaders of the Theosophy Lodge in Vienna are all Masons…” (p. 245). ”

Obviously, Kolbe was an equal-opportunity offender, directing his well-founded criticisms at multiple enemies of traditional Polish Catholicism–not only at Jews, and then only against aggressive, secularized ones.

In any case, Kolbe’s views of Jews have nothing to do with those of the later Nazis. Kolbe praised the Jewish origins of Christianity (p. 220), and, months before the German-Soviet conquest of Poland, reminded his listeners that National Socialist ideology is incompatible with the Catholic faith. (p. 539). Finally, actions speak louder than words. In 1940, Niepokalanow fed at least 1,500 Jewish refugees (p. 630). Kolbe himself authorized the hiding of Saul Wiesenthal (p. 633), a Jew who had deduced that the Nazis’ ghettoization of the Polish Jews was the beginning of something more sinister.

THE THINKING OF MAKSIMILIAN KOLBE

The reader of this detailed book immediately becomes impressed by the intellectual and spiritual depth of Father Kolbe. There is also a broad sweep of Polish history. Kolbe’s knowledge of the Bible is impressive, and his devotion to our Lord and His Mother is obvious. He has several debates with atheists and non-Catholics. He concedes the fact that the Marian dogmas have no direct basis in either Scripture or early Church tradition, but are instead derived from the Church’s progressive understanding of Mary’s role in God’s plan for salvation. At one time, Father Kolbe needed 500 marks, and that is exactly what God provided him through an anonymous donor (p. 357)

The book also discusses Kolbe’s work in Japan. He had to deal with repeated incidents of smashed statues of the Virgin Mary. (pp. 408-409).

SOME LEADING GERMAN JEWISH LEADERS SUPPORTED THE NAZIS

The book follows developments in prewar Nazi Germany: “In the plebiscite of Sunday, November 12th [1933], providing the German people the opportunity to affirm or to disavow National Socialist policy, the nation responded with a 92.1% percent endorsement for Adolf Hitler and his party. Despite the Nazi-sponsored boycott of Jewish shops…and the Arian {Aryan] Law…[designed to exclude Jews from civil service], Berlin’s leading rabbi, Leo Baeck, urged all German Jews to vote in support of Hitler’s plebiscite. The plebiscite overwhelmingly was endorsed by the German gentile public and by the Jewish voters.” (p. 457)

KOLBE LAYS DOWN HIS LIFE

The Communists weren’t the only ones who tried to force Christians to step on crucifixes. Attempts were made by the Nazis to force the Polish priests incarcerated as Auschwitz to do the same (p. 666)

Kolbe’s sacrifice of his own life was a one-of-a-kind act: “Never at Dachau earlier nor during his present assignment at Auschwitz had Fritsch experienced a prisoner who requested to substitute his own life for the life of the condemned.” (p. 673) As Kolbe was dying in the starvation bunker, he led the other prisoners in singing and praying. The German guard commented: “Usually the prisoners are screaming and cursing at us. He’s transformed the death chamber into a chapel. He must be an idiot.”, to which another German guard retorted: “Or a saint.” (p. 674).

Indeed!