St. Maximilian Kolbe VOLUNTEERED To Be Starved To Death; Terri Schiavo Did NOT

MichNews ^ | Mar 13, 2005 | Michael J. Gaynor

[BykrBayb]

St. Maximilian Kolbe VOLUNTEERED To Be Starved To Death; Terri Schiavo Did NOT

By Michael J. Gaynor
MichNews.com
Mar 13, 2005

Michael Schiavo wants to starve his wife Terri to death as soon as possible.

Michael claims he is fulfilling Terri's wish.

And turned down $1,000,000 to let Terri be cared for by her loving parents instead of starved to death and
cremated.

Judge Greer claims to believe Michael.

He supposedly doesn't suspect that Michael is determined to cover up something that is more important
for him to cover up than $1,000,000.

If Michael succeeds, he will go down in history as the man who fought for years to starve his wife to death
instead of giving her therapy and having her teeth brushed.

Michael is Terri's legal guardian as well as her husband.

And he is using that status to starve her to death.

With a complicit judge providing judicial approval.

After collecting $700,000 for Terri and $300,000 for himself in a malpractice action by conveniently
omitting to mention his subsequent claim that Terri really wanted to die and he was going to seek court
approval to starve her to death as soon as he collected the big money.

Not many mentally competent people starve to death voluntarily.

And, even if Terri DID orally mention to Michael and a couple of his relatives that she did not want to be
kept alive artificially, it is an enormous leap to the conclusion that she wanted to be starved to death.

One person who actually volunteered to be starved to death is Saint Maximilian Kolbe.

And he volunteered to do so to preserve a family.

Accepting martyrdom for a noble purpose.

The story is well worth knowing.

And repeating.

Born Raymond Kolbe, in Poland, in 1894, he was the second son of a poor weaver.

He believed from childhood that he was destined to be a martyr.

And he became one.

Ordained as a priest in 1918, his health deteriorated.

He suffered from tuberculosis and felt himself overshadowed by death.

Doctors pronounced him incurable.

One of his lungs had collapsed and the other was damaged.

After Hitler invaded and occupied Poland in 1939, he was deported to Germany.

Not long after, he was freed and returned to Poland.

And he promptly began to organize a shelter for 3,000 Polish refugees, including 2,000 Jews.

"We must do everything in our power to help these unfortunate people who have been driven from their
homes and deprived of even the most basic necessities. Our mission is among them in the days that lie ahead."

So said St. Maximilian Kolbe.

He and his friars shared everything they had with the refugees.

They housed, fed and clothed them.

The suspicious Nazis watched closely.

Early in 1941, St. Maximilian Kolbe published a paper that was even more uncomfortable to the Nazis than the
motions made by Terri Schiavo's parents have been for Judge Greer.

St. Maximilian Kolbe provoked his own arrest by writing: "No one in the world can change Truth. 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?"

Michael Schiavo, heed those words.

Judge Greer, you too.

On February 14, 1941, St. Maximilian Kolbe was arrested and sent to the infamous Pawiak prison in Warsaw.

Where he was singled out for special ill-treatment.

A witness reported that in March of that year an SS guard, seeing him in his habit girdled with a rosary,
asked if he believed in Christ.

When then Father Kolbe calmly replied, "I do", the guard struck him.

The SS sadist repeated his question several times, each time receiving the same answer and then responding with
a merciless beating.

Shortly afterwards, Father Kolbe’s Franciscan habit was taken away and prisoner garb was substituted for it.

On May 28, Father Kolbe and hundreds of others were deported from Pawiak to Auschwitz.

There Father Kolbe received striped convict's garments.

And was branded with the number 16670.

He was put to work immediately carrying blocks of stone for the construction of a crematorium wall.

On May 31, he was assigned with other priests to the Babice section, which was under the direction
of "Bloody" Krott, an ex-criminal.

Like Judge Greer, he was a person who held the power of life and death.

"These men are layabouts and parasites, get them working," the Camp Commandant told Krott.

Krott forced the priests to cut and carry huge tree trunks.

The work went on all day without a stop and had to be done running --- with the aid of vicious blows from the
guards.

Despite his lung condition, Father Kolbe survived the work and the blows.

Krott hated him and gave him heavier tasks than the others.

One day, Krott found some of the heaviest planks available and personally loaded them on Father Kolbe's
back, ordering him to run.

When he collapsed, Krott kicked him in the stomach and face and had his men give him fifty lashes.

When he lost consciousness, Krott threw him in the mud and left him for dead.

But companions managed to smuggle Father Kolbe to the camp hospital.

In Auschwitz, hunger and hatred reigned and faith evaporated.

But Father Kolbe opened his heart to others and spoke of God's infinite love.

When food was brought in and everyone struggled to get a place in the queue so as to be sure of a share,
Father Kolbe waited, so that frequently there was none left for him.

At other times he shared his meager ration of soup or bread with others.

Asked whether such self-abnegation made sense in a place where every man was engaged in a struggle or
survival, he answered: "Every man has an aim in life. For most men it is to return home to their wives and
families, or to their mothers. For my part, I give my life for the good of all men."

Men gathered in secret to hear his words of love and encouragement.

His example inspired.

Father Zygmunt Rusczak recalled: "Each time I saw Father Kolbe in the courtyard I felt within myself an
extraordinary effusion of his goodness. Although he wore the same ragged clothes as the rest of us, with
the same tin can hanging from his belt, one forgot his wretched exterior and was conscious only of the charm
of his inspired countenance and of his radiant holiness."

The culmination of Father Kolbe's self-sacrifice is memorialized in the sworn testimonials of former camp
inmates, collected as part of his beatification proceedings.

They are as follows:

Tadeusz Joachimowski, clerk of Block 14A: "In the summer of 1941, most probably on the last day of July
the camp siren announced that there had been an escape. At the evening roll-call of the same day we, ie Block
14A, were formed up in the street between the buildings of Blocks 14 and 17. After some delay we were joined by
a group of the Landwirtschafts-Kommando. During the count it was found that three prisoners from this
Kommando had escaped: one from our Block and the two others from other Blocks. Lagerfuhrer Fritzsch
announced that on account of the escape of the three prisoners, ten prisoners would be picked in reprisal
from the blocks in which the fugitives had lived and would be assigned to the Bunker (the underground
starvation cell)"

Jan Jakub Zegidewicz takes up the story from there: "After the group of doomed men had already been
selected, a prisoner stepped out from the ranks of one of the Blocks. I recognized Fr Kolbe. Owing to my poor
knowledge of German I did not understand what they talked about, nor do I remember whether Fr Kolbe spoke
directly to Fritzsch. When making his request, Fr Kolbe stood at attention and pointed at a former non-
commissioned officer known to me from the camp. It could be inferred from the expression on Fritzsch's
face that he was surprised at Fr Kolbe's action. As the sign was given, Fr Kolbe joined the ranks of the doomed
and the non-commissioned officer left the ranks of the doomed Fritzsch had consented to the exchange. A little
later, the doomed men were marched off in the direction of Block 13, the death Block."

The non-commissioned officer was Franciszek Gajowniczek.

When the sentence of doom had been pronounced, Gajowniczek had cried out in despair, "Oh, my poor
wife, my poor children. I shall never see them again."

It was then that the unexpected had happened, and that from among the ranks of those temporarily reprieved,
prisoner 16670 had stepped forward and offered himself in the other man's place.

Then the ten condemned men were led off to the dreaded Bunker, to the airless underground cells were men died
slowly without food or water.

It's a horrible way to die, Michael Schiavo.

And Judge Greer.

Bruno Borgowiec, an eyewitness of those last terrible days and an assistant to the janitor and an interpreter
in the underground Bunkers: "In the cell of the poor wretches there were daily loud prayers, the rosary and
singing, in which prisoners from neighbouring cells also joined. When no SS men were in the Block, I went
to the Bunker to talk to the men and comfort them. Fervent prayers and songs to the Holy Mother resounded
in all the corridors of the Bunker. I had the impression I was in a church. Fr Kolbe was leading and
the prisoners responded in unison. They were often so deep in prayer that they did not even hear that
inspecting SS men had descended to the Bunker; and the voices fell silent only at the loud yelling of their
visitors. When the cells were opened the poor wretches cried loudly and begged for a piece of bread and for
water, which they did not receive, however. If any of the stronger ones approached the door he was
immediately kicked in the stomach by the SS men, so that falling backwards on the cement floor he was
instantly killed; or he was shot to death ... Fr Kolbe bore up bravely, he did not beg and did not complain
but raised the spirits of the others. ...Since they had grown very weak, prayers were now only whispered. At
every inspection, when almost all the others were now lying on the floor, Fr Kolbe was seen kneeling or
standing in the centre as he looked cheerfully in the face of the SS men. Two weeks passed in this way.
Meanwhile one after another they died, until only Fr Kolbe was left. This the authorities felt was too long;
the cell was needed for new victims. So one day they brought in the head of the sickquarters, a German, a
common criminal named Bock, who gave Fr Kolbe an injection of carbolic acid in the vein of his left arm.
Fr Kolbe, with a prayer on his lips, himself gave his arm to the executioner. Unable to watch this I left
under the pretext of work to be done. Immediately after the SS men with the executioner had left I returned to
the cell, where I found Fr Kolbe leaning in a sitting position against the back wall with his eyes open and
his head dropping sideways. His face was calm and radiant."

The heroism of Fr Kolbe went echoing through Auschwiz.

Mr Jozef Stemler, former director of an important cultural institute in Poland: "In those conditions ...
in the midst of a brutalization of thought and feeling and words such as had never before been known, man
indeed became a ravening wolf in his relations with other men. And into this state of affairs came the
heroic self-sacrifice of Fr Maximilian. The atmosphere grew lighter, as this thunderbolt provoked its profound
and salutary shock."

Jerzy Bielecki declared that Father Kolbe's death was "a shock filled with hope, bringing new life and
strength. ...It was like a powerful shaft of light in the darkness of the camp."

His reputation spread far and wide, through the Nazi camps and beyond.

After the war, newspapers around the world were deluged with articles about this "saint for our times", "saint
of progress", "giant of holiness".

Biographies were written.

Everywhere there were claims of cures being brought about through his intercession.

"The life and death of this one man alone can be proof and witness of the fact that the love of God can
overcome the greatest hatred, the greatest injustice, even death itself," the Polish bishops declared.

St. Maximilian Kolbe had loved his fellow-men to the point of sacrificing his life for them.

Does Michael Schiavo hate Terri and himself so much that he must starve her to death?

Is Pontius Pilot the role model of Judge Greer?

-------

Email: GaynorMike@aol.com

Copyright© MichNews.com. All Rights Reserved.

[8mmMauser]

Huge Kolbe bump

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

If a criminal scum in jail tried to starve themselves, they would be force fed.

[Future Useless Eater]

THE TERRI SCHIAVO INFORMATION PAGE

[Theodore R.]

They are both murderous ghouls.

And bipartisan ghouls at that: Greer (R) and Sciavo (D)!

[pickyourpoison]

bttt

[Salvation]

BTTT!

[pc93]

Actions for Terri;

http://tekgnosis.typepad.com
http://blogsforterri.com
http://www.terrisfight.org

[BykrBayb]

Those are some beautiful kids you got there!

[BykrBayb]

Thanks for the links. Keep up the good work.

[Salvation]

American Catholic’s Saint of the Day

August 14, 2007

St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe

(1894-1941)

“I don’t know what’s going to become of you!” How many parents have said that? Maximilian Mary Kolbe’s reaction was, “I prayed very hard to Our Lady to tell me what would happen to me. She appeared, holding in her hands two crowns, one white, one red. She asked if I would like to have them—one was for purity, the other for martyrdom. I said, ‘I choose both.’ She smiled and disappeared.” After that he was not the same.

He entered the minor seminary of the Conventual Franciscans in Lvív (then Poland, now Ukraine), near his birthplace, and at 16 became a novice. Though he later achieved doctorates in philosophy and theology, he was deeply interested in science, even drawing plans for rocket ships.

Ordained at 24, he saw religious indifference as the deadliest poison of the day. His mission was to combat it. He had already founded the Militia of the Immaculata, whose aim was to fight evil with the witness of the good life, prayer, work and suffering. He dreamed of and then founded Knight of the Immaculata,, a religious magazine under Mary’s protection to preach the Good News to all nations. For the work of publication he established a “City of the Immaculata”—Niepokalanow—which housed 700 of his Franciscan brothers. He later founded one in Nagasaki, Japan. Both the Militia and the magazine ultimately reached the one-million mark in members and subscribers. His love of God was daily filtered through devotion to Mary.

In 1939 the Nazi panzers overran Poland with deadly speed. Niepokalanow was severely bombed. Kolbe and his friars were arrested, then released in less than three months, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

In 1941 he was arrested again. The Nazis’ purpose was to liquidate the select ones, the leaders. The end came quickly, in Auschwitz three months later, after terrible beatings and humiliations.

A prisoner had escaped. The commandant announced that 10 men would die. He relished walking along the ranks. “This one. That one.” As they were being marched away to the starvation bunkers, Number 16670 dared to step from the line. “I would like to take that man’s place. He has a wife and children.” “Who are you?” “A priest.” No name, no mention of fame. Silence. The commandant, dumbfounded, perhaps with a fleeting thought of history, kicked Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek out of line and ordered Father Kolbe to go with the nine. In the “block of death” they were ordered to strip naked and the slow starvation began in darkness. But there was no screaming—the prisoners sang. By the eve of the Assumption four were left alive. The jailer came to finish Kolbe off as he sat in a corner praying. He lifted his fleshless arm to receive the bite of the hypodermic needle. It was filled with carbolic acid. They burned his body with all the others. He was beatified in 1971 and canonized in 1982.

Comment:

Father Kolbe’s death was not a sudden, last-minute act of heroism. His whole life had been a preparation. His holiness was a limitless, passionate desire to convert the whole world to God. And his beloved Immaculata was his inspiration.

Quote:

“Courage, my sons. Don’t you see that we are leaving on a mission? They pay our fare in the bargain. What a piece of good luck! The thing to do now is to pray well in order to win as many souls as possible. Let us, then, tell the Blessed Virgin that we are content, and that she can do with us anything she wishes” (Maximilian Mary Kolbe, when first arrested).

[HitmanLV]

Must we keep revisiting this GOP’s political nadir?

[LilAngel]

Thank you for revisiting this thread from a couple years ago, and pointing out how the GOP failed the American people then, as they are doing now.

They failed to uphold their obligation to protect the God given right to life. Now they are failing to protect us from foreign invaders. I hope they come to their senses soon.

[LilAngel]

Thank you for sharing that beautiful tribute. His life was an even more beautiful tribute to the love of God.

[BykrBayb]

Must we keep revisiting this GOP’s political nadir?

I haven't looked at this thread in about two and a half years. Thanks for pinging me back to it. It seems not much has changed.

[8mmMauser]

Pinged from Terri Dailies

8mm