With St Maximilian Kolbe’s feast day on August 14 approaching, his story and those of the Holocaust victims must be kept alive for future generations, as our fortnightly family life column explains

IN 1981 Pope John Paul II canonised a true hero of our times, a Polish priest who had been executed in 1941, at the age of 47, and who is now considered to be the patron of families, journalists, prisoners and the pro-life movement.

Ordained into the Priesthood in Rome in 1918, Fr Maximilian Kolbe built a friary near Warsaw in Poland which expanded and eventually housing over 750 Franciscans.

They printed a daily newspaper and circulated over a million catechetical and devotional publications.

 

 

To Read the full story please buy a copy of this week's Catholic Observer available at your local church or newsagent.....