What St. Maximilian Kolbe saw on February 17, 1917

One hundred and seven years ago today, on February 17, 1917, St. Maximilian Kolbe witnessed a demonstration by the Freemasons in Rome.

Their violently anti-Catholic demonstrations shocked St. Maximilian and his Franciscan confreres. Personal attacks and ribald mockery of Pope Benedict XV dominated their marching. In addition, there were declarations that Satan would rule in St. Peter’s and that the Pope would be his slave. The Freemason’s demonstrations included demonic rants: they displayed a poster with Satan crushing St. Michael.

This date might have been selected because, on the same date in 1600, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for heresy. He had embraced Calvinism and rejected numerous key Catholic doctrines. He was not executed for his scientific beliefs as is commonly proclaimed by atheists, modernists, secular humanists, and all others who don’t let facts get in the way of their propaganda. February 17th is also the eve of the death of Martin Luther, the chief heresiarch of the 16th Century Protestant Revolt. The year 1917 was also the 400th Anniversary of that Revolt and the 200th Anniversary of the first modern Grand Masonic Lodge in England.

These considerations led St. Maximilian to create the Militia of the Immaculata on October 16, 1917. It is a ministry (currently an ‘International Public Association of the Faithful’) that uses total consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary according to a formula devised by St. Maximilian to become ‘paintbrushes’ or ‘pens’ in the hands of the Blessed Mother to win souls for the Sacred Heart of Jesus. His consecration formula creates an army of evangelical warriors, all dedicated to winning souls for Christ.

Popes have long condemned Freemasonry. Although Freemasonry in the United States lacks the impact it has in Europe (it’s mostly regarded as another fraternal organization like the Elks and Moose Lodges,) across the Atlantic it has always had a more radical stance. It has always been an organization, even in the USA, that seeks to undermine the Catholic Church, if not outright destroy it. While the inspiration or chief motivation of St. Maximilian in forming the Militia of the Immaculata was to oppose Freemasonry, it can be said that the MI (or “Mary’s Army”) is a prayer-warrior nucleus of a counterrevolutionary movement that opposes all forms of Modernism that Freemasonry inspired. Masonry teaches a naturalistic deistic religion which conflicts with Church doctrine. Furthermore, as a secret society that prohibits members from divulging the inner workings of its Lodges, it is similar to Gnosticism. The Bishops of the United States declared in their 1985 “Letter to U.S. Bishops Concerning Masonry” that "the principles and basic rituals of Masonry embody a naturalistic religion active participation in which is incompatible with Christian faith and practice." This essentially implies that Freemasonry is a religious or spiritual organization, and the Church has always prohibited her members from actively participating in such things.

Furthermore, a study of subversive movements throughout the post-Enlightenment era hints that Freemasons had been leaders of the French Revolution and its bastard offspring, the Bolshevik Revolution. Together, these movements nurtured the main tenets of Modernism (as born in the Enlightenment.) As Our Lady prophesied at Fatima that Russia will continue to spread her errors throughout the world, Freemasonry can be seen as a dark thread running through the various ideologies of Modernism, all of which seem to have as their chief target the upending and demolition of the Catholic social order, or the rebirth of one! Each of these contributed to the demise of the 1,000+ years of a Catholic-dominated social order of Church and Monarchy alliance. While that was flawed, given the wars fought between Catholic states, it was a far less bloody era than what followed: the Enlightenment Era of Science and Rationalism and the rise of republican forms of government which all ultimately led to the State becoming the arbiter of morality instead of the Church. As I defined it in my book, “The Catholicpunk Manifesto,”

The Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement originating in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. It advocated the primacy of human happiness, that knowledge can be obtained by the use of reason and the evidence of the senses alone, and ideals such as natural law, liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state. Nice, in theory, except it resulted in exacerbating the fracturing of Christianity and the diminution of the influence of the Catholic Church (and the resulting moral confusion;) the rise of militant atheism, the rise of Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution, Socialism, the French Revolution and its offspring, Communism. But it also did produce nice literature and artwork, the American Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. OK, so it’s complicated.

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So, how can we learn from today’s Kolbean history? Kolbe was inspired to react positively to what he viewed as blasphemy. The lesson we can take away from this is that we can respond in different ways to offenses: get all angry and raise our fists in self-righteous emotion, or calmly plan out a long-term solution to the evils witnessed and make appeals (instead of demands) to bring about change. This also reflects Christ’s modus operandi. Except for the Moneychangers in the Temple episode, Jesus never really got angry. He might have used harsh words on occasion, but the Gospel writers didn’t portray those moments as Him getting all wound up and emotional. St. Maximilian Kolbe was on fire to confront the Freemasons but his confreres held him back; even his religious superiors kept him from trying to meet with the Freemason’s leadership in an attempt to convert him. So, Kolbe tried a different approach: he laid down the plans for a ministry that would slowly work towards winning souls for Jesus through Mary. Once the seeds of Marian devotion were planted within souls, her Spouse the Holy Spirit would water those seeds and the souls would embark on a path to Jesus. The Sacred Heart of Jesus would gain another lover.

And so the world will be converted: the chaff and tares of Modernism will be conquered by the love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary towards her children and the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart will reign.

You can learn more about the Militia of the Immaculata, and how to enroll, right here.

Incidentally, on this same day in 1941, St. Maximilian Kolbe was arrested for the final time and sent to Pawiak Prison in Warsaw; from there he would be sent to Auschwitz. God-willing, I will write on that next year.