On Thu, 14 Aug 1997, S.F.C. CHURCHILL wrote:

> I think the spelling is right. Can anyone tell me if this man, whose 
> feast day is today and who died during WWII was the last person to be 
> canonised in recent years. I'm sure the cause of others is being 
> considered at the moment but I am only interested in those who now 
> hold the title of saint.

Maximilian Kolbe (birthname Raymond) was born in 1894, died Aug. 14, 1941
(on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption) at Oswiecim/Auschwitz.  He was
canonized in 1982.  Kolbe was very well known in Poland between the two
wars as the head of a publishing apostolate of the Conventual Franciscans.
Hundreds of young men flocked to his monastery-publishing center,
Niepokalanov (The Immaculate's Town).  He established a daughter
foundation in Nagasaki, Japan, which also thrived.  He had begun to enter
the field of radio broadcasting and was looking into other sorts of
communcations media ventures.  He founded the Militia Immaculatae, a
confraternity of both lay and religious members, which became very popular
in Poland and around the world.

He was arrested twice, released the first time, then rearrested.  He was
sent first to Warsaw and then to Oswiecim.  When a prisoner escaped and
could not be found, the standard practice was to sentence ten prisoners,
chosen at random, to death by starvation.  Kolbe volunteered to take the
place of a Polish army sergeant who was distraught at the thought of never
seeing his wife and children again.  Kolbe had nearly died of tuberculosis
when he was in his late 20s and early 30s, he had only one functioning
lung.  His survival during three months at Auschwitz, given his poor
health, was itself remarkable; in the starvation bunker he functioned as
a priest for his fellow prisoners, preparing each to face death.  On Aug.
14 he and three or four other prisoners were still alive, but only he was
conscious.  (This was after about 2 weeks of starvation.)  All were given
lethal injections.  We know something of the last days of the prisoners
and of Kolbe's last hours through testimony of the Polish prisoner who was
assigned to carry out the latrine bucket.  The prisoner whose place he
took survived and was present at the beatification and canonization.  I
believe he may have lived in the Chicago area; other surviving witnesses
certainly did live in this area.  The Conventual Franciscans have a "Mary
Town" in Libertyville--a convent, retreat center, publishing house.  I
have included Kolbe in two of my undergraduate courses, one of which deals
with medieval and modern saints.  Through Conventual Franciscan students I
have had some contact with people who knew Kolbe and the man whose place
he took.

Strictly speaking, Kolbe did not die as a martyr for the faith.  A new
category, Martyr of Charity, was devised for his beatification and
canonization.  A good popular biography is Patricia Treece, _A Man for
Others_ (Libertyville: Prow Books/Franciscan Marytown Press, 1993,
originally 1982, Harper and Row); Maria Winowska has written a biography
and edited a book of testimony about him--her account has the advantage of
coming from a fellow Pole.  Anselm Romb, OFM has edited the _Kolbe Reader_
(Libertyville: Franciscan Marytown Press).

Kolbe was greatly devoted to the Virgin Mary and did some theologically
significant work on Mary as the Immaculate Conception and Mediatrix of All
Graces.  The best work on this is by H. M. Manteau-Bonamy, O.P.,
_Immaculate Conception and the Holy Spirit: The Marian Teachings of St.
Maximilian Kolbe_.  Millions of Catholics and hundreds of bishops around
the world have petitioned that "Mediatrix of All Graces" be dogmatically
defined as a title of the Virgin Mary; it does not now seem likely that
the pope will do this in the near future.  _Inside the Vatican_ magazine
has had several detailed articles on this question in May and July of
1997.

John Paul II has canonized more people in his 19-year pontificate than
were canonized for several centuries preceding his pontificate.  He
believes strongly that saints serve as models of holiness for the faithful
and desires to see canonizations of people from all walks of life,
especially lay people.  To that end he oversaw the completion of the
revision of the entire process of canonization that had been set in motion
by Paul VI.  The new rules were promulgated in 1983.  Only one miracle is
required for beatification and one more for canonization.  The major
change is to put the main responsibility for the investigation of the
cause into the hands of the bishop of the diocese where the prospective
saint lived (or whichever bishop calls for the introduction of a cause).
More of the investigation is now carried out by historians and theologians
on the local level; they reach conclusions that are then evaluated by the
Congregation for the Causes of Saints (now separated from the
Congregation of the Rites, which was formerly responsible for
canonizations).  If additional detailed historical research is needed, a
historical section within the Congregation undertakes specific studies.
All published and, in later stages, unpublished writings, of the person
are evaluated, at first on the diocesan level, then in Rome.  Testimony is
gathered from all who knew the person, again, primarily at the local
level, but confirmed and evaluated in Rome.  The investigation and
verification of miracles still proceeds according to the principles laid
out by Benedict XIV in the 18thc (the criteria are exceedingly stringent
and rest entirely on empirically verifiable evidence).  The recent book by
Kenneth Woodward, _Making Saints_ is helpful in describing the revised,
post-1983 process, though highly tendentious in some of its contentions
and inaccurate in many of its details.  One should balance it with Michael
Freze, _The Making of Saints_ (Our Sunday Visitor, 1991).  The revised
rules were published in the Apostolic Constitution, _Divinus Perfectionis
magister_ in the _Acta Apostolicae Sedis_ in 1983; I don't have the
exact citation to hand but can retrieve it if necessary.  An English
translation also exists, by Robert J. Sarno; it has been reprinted on pp.
104-109 of Freze's book.

For the process between the Middle Ages and 1983, a number of overviews
exist.  The basic modern primer was written by Benedict XIV in the 18thc
and exists in a partial English translation.  The details are found in
Freze, pp. 83-109 or in Woodward.  Basically authority over canonizations
was asserted by popes from the mid-12thc onward but bishops frequently
canonized on their own authority until Urban VIII in the 17thc forbad such
canonizations.  Benedict XIV then wrote the multivolume manual
(before becoming popes Benedict had been postulator for the cause of St.
Joseph of Cupertino and was very familiar with the questions of scientific
verification of miracles) in the 1740s.  Nothing much changed from the
18thc until the 1983 revisions.

Dennis Martin
Loyola University Chicago



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