AUGUST 14: ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE: Patron Saint of Political Prisoners
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SAINTS ALIVE!
AUGUST 14: ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE
Patron Saint of Political Prisoners
(Drug Addicts, Families, and the Pro-life Movement)
The definition of political prisoner is a person imprisoned for their political beliefs or actions; a person put in prison because of his or her political beliefs.
Maximillian Kolbe was a priest in Poland, which had become an independent country about the same time that Kolbe was ordained (1918).
Two decades later, he refused to sign a document that would recognize him as a German citizen with his German ancestry and continued to work in his monastery, providing shelter for refugees - including hiding 2,000 Jews from German persecution.
After receiving permission to continue his religious publishing, Kolbe's monastery acted as a publishing house again and issued many anti-Nazi German publications.
On February 17, 1941, the monastery was shut down; Kolbe was arrested by the German Gestapo and taken to the Pawiak prison. Three months later, he was transferred to Auschwitz. On August 14, 1941, he died by lethal injection.
Maximillian Kolbe is the patron saint of political prisoners.
Earlier this year, bishops from the U.S. Conference wrote a letter to the U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson regarding the political crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). They repeated the concerns of the DRC Catholic Bishops' Conference, including the agreement between the government and opposition parties to the release of political prisoners.
A quick scan of the websites of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Amnesty International shines a spotlight on the dark reality of political prisoners throughout the world: Myanmar, Cuba, Venezuela, Philippines, North Korea, and the Middle East.
One’s religious conscience can overlap with one’s political beliefs. While not necessarily identical, politics and religion, values and faith, are the same for many. And imprisonment for refusing to violate one’s conscience is tantamount to serving time for one’s political beliefs.
For example, Kolbe was arrested because of his political beliefs, not because of his religion, though the foundation of his politics was faith. The two – religious conscience and political beliefs – neatly overlap.
St. Maximillian Kolbe, we ask for your prayers and intercession for all people imprisoned because of their political beliefs, who are desperate, alone and in need of God's loving support. Amen.