Welcome to St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Church

On July 6, 1989 the Archdiocese of Cincinnati announced the founding of St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish.  Prompted by overcrowding at St. John the Evangelist Parish in West Chester, it was decided by popular vote of the congregation to create a new parish rather than remain a single mega parish.  The parish boundaries were set and 500 charter families became the first parishioners.  Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk chose WWII Polish martyr, St. Maximilian Kolbe, as patron saint – “a saint for our times and an example to the people”...Read more

OUR MODERN SAINT

St. Maximilian was born as Raymond Kolbe, January 8th, 1894 in Lodz, Poland. Although a wild boy as a youth, he was moved by the prayers and pleas of his mother. One day when he was twelve, as he prayed before a statue of Mary he saw her in a vision; she offered him two crowns: a white one for purity and red for martyrdom. Told to choose between them, he asked for both. He became a Franciscan friar and took the name Maximilian.  He was ordained in 1919.

His life was devoted to Mary. He founded the order Knights of the Immaculata which used the means of mass communication, including radio and a widely circulated newspaper and magazine, to spread truth. "No one in the world can change Truth," he said. "What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?" Indifference toward the things of God was the deadliest enemy of any soul. He aimed to defeat this.

German occupation closed the friary in May 1941, and Father Kolbe and 4 companions were sent to Auschwitz.  In prison, Maximilian carried on his priestly work surreptitiously, hearing confessions in unlikely places and celebrating the Lord's Supper.  He often went without food so others might have more and insisted on being the last in his unit to receive medical treatment. His attitude was expressed in his words, "For Jesus Christ I am prepared to suffer still more." 

In early August, 1941, a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz.  The camp's rule was that if one prisoner escaped, ten died in his place. All day the weak and underfed men from the escaped prisoner's block were made to stand in the sun without food and water. When the man was not found, a prison guard called out the names of ten men who were to die in his place.  (The dreadful irony of the story is that the escaped prisoner was later found drowned in a camp latrine, so the terrible reprisals had been exercised without cause.)

When Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek heard his name called, he cried out, "Have mercy! I have a wife and children." But mercy was a commodity in short supply in Nazi death camps.

Into the gap stepped Fr. Maximilian Kolbe. He moved forward silently. Asked what he wanted, he replied, "I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place, because he has a wife and children." Hesitating a moment in face of this noble gesture, Commandant Fritsch accepted the replacement. Maximilian and nine others were sent to starve to death.  At the end of two weeks, only Fr. Kolbe and 3 others were alive; only Fr. Kolbe was still concious.  One of the most heroic acts of the twentieth century reached its conclusion on this day, August 14, 1941, the Vigil of the Immaculate Conception. That is when the Franciscan friar, Maximilian Kolbe, lifted up his arm to receive a lethal injection of carbolic acid, as the cell block was needed for new prisoners.  So it was that Father Maximilian Kolbe was executed at the age of forty-seven years, a martyr of charity. His body was removed to the crematorium, and without dignity or ceremony was disposed of, like hundreds of thousands who had gone before him, and hundreds of thousands more who would follow.

Pope John Paul II canonized Maximilian in 1982, saying, "He bore witness to Christ and to love."

MISSION STATEMENT

We are a Catholic Christian Community under the patronage of our Modern Saint, St. Maximilian Kolbe. Our parish strives to serve unselfishly all who seek the Lord and to provide a safe and nurturing home for prayer, worship, education, and spiritual growth. Led by the Holy Spirit and strengthened by the Eucharist, we work to unify the Body of Christ.