Pornchai Moontri looked on the death chamber of Maximilian Kolbe and saw devouring jaws of evil. I saw that evil too, but choking on a brave soul’s noble defiance.
Auschwitz 1941: “After the so-called dinner, I was invited between Blocks 18 and 19 where some prisoners had gathered among whom were several priests… Our colleague, Kolbe, spoke of the Feast of Corpus Christi, of the great omnipresent God, and of our sufferings by which He was trying to make us ready for a better life.” (A priest at Auschwitz, from “Depositions of Fellow Prisoners,” 1970, p. 34)
The photograph in this post has deep meaning and significance for us. TSW reader Lupe Gwiazdowski stood with her camera before the gaping maw of a prison window at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. She photographed the window of the death chamber that consumed the life of our Patron Saint but could not extinguish the light of his sacrificial priesthood.
When Lupe’s letter with the photograph arrived in early July, Pornchai “Max” Moontri and I were standing with 100 other prisoners for Mail Call. The mail handlers here reversed the pages before stuffing the letter back in its envelope so the page with this photo was on top when I unfolded the letter.
I did not know what the photo was, but right off Pornchai pointed to it. It’s a face!” he said. “An evil face!” Study the photograph above for a moment. Once I saw what Pornchai saw, I could not look at the photo again without instantly seeing that same demonic face. You will see it too.
But what Pornchai saw as the gaping jaws of evil ready to devour, I saw those same jaws choking on whatever was inside. When I suggested this to Pornchai, he saw it too. Stare at the photo for another moment, and you may see what I mean.
Then I read the letter that accompanied Lupe’s photo, and realized with a jolt that it was behind these gaping jaws that our Patron Saint, Maximilian Kolbe, surrendered his life in defiance of the great evil that manifested itself at Auschwitz.
Over two weeks of forced starvation followed his choice to die in place of an innocent young man. When Father Kolbe did not die in a timely manner that suited his captors, his life was taken by lethal injection on August 14, 1941. After a lifetime of devotion to “The Immaculata,” death came on the Vigil of the Solemnity of the Assumption. Lupe tells the story of the photo in her letter of June 29, 2017 that touched our hearts deeply:
“Hi Father G: I wanted to send you this photo and I hope you get it. I went to Poland this month, and I made a mental note to pray for you and Pornchai “Max” Moontri at the Auschwitz cell of St Maximilian Kolbe.
As is often the case with my mental notes, when I got to the cell I was so overwhelmed that I forgot it. As soon as we exited the block of cells I remembered. I left the group and tried to push my way back to the cell, but Polish tour guides are not to be pushed against! I didn’t make it.
I was downcast as I caught up with the group, and then realized that the guide was pointing to the bars of the Saint’s cell window from the outside. I didn’t even hear what she was saying as I looked upon this sacred spot. I thought of how this priest and his companion prisoners died
giving such powerful witness through those same bars to so many whose hope was perishing. I lifted you and Pornchai up right there, and then snapped this photo for you. Father, I do not know what else to say.When I got back to a computer, I saw your post, “Thoughts Upon My 35th Anniversary of Priesthood Ordination,” and realized that your anniversary was on the same day I prayed for you and Pornchai-Max at Auschwitz. Father, thank you for your priesthood.”
IN NOBLE DEFIANCE OF EVIL
Today, virtually everyone knows the story of Saint Maximilian Kolbe. His Earthly remains were reduced to smoke and ash in the ovens of Hitler to drift in the skies above Auschwitz. But what he wrote and said and did, the glow of his soul, still moves mountains and the hearts of millions.
In Father Maximilian Kolbe, evil did not destroy what it set out to destroy. It imprisoned and killed the body of a man, but the priest lived on in noble sacrifice and love. The jaws of that window choked on the goodness of the soul contained therein.
Of all the thousands of accounts about the witness and strength of Father Maximilian Kolbe, for me the most powerful account comes from Herrmann Langbein who was a prisoner at Dachau and then at Auschwitz. He is best known for his book, Against All Hope: Resistance in the Nazi Concentration Camps, 1938-1945. He singles out one man’s defiance that I have cited in other posts about our Patron Saint:
“The best-known act of resistance was that of Maximilian Rajmund Kolbe, who deprived the camp administration of the power to make arbitrary decisions about life and death.” (People in Auschwitz, p. 241)
https://www.amazon.com/People-Auschwitz-Published-Association-Holocaust/dp/0807828165
Langbein went on to write powerfully of the witness, not only of Father Kolbe’s sacrifice by volunteering to take upon himself the death sentence of a fellow prisoner, but of his demeanor in prison:
“Kolbe and his companions in misfortune had to spend almost three weeks [in starvation] in an unlit cell. On. August 14 (1941) a lethal injection ended the suffering of the man whose bearing elicited the respect of the supervising SS men to the very end.” (p. 241)
https://www.amazon.com/Screwtape-Letters-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652934
I pray for the gift of this brave priest’s noble defiance of evil. It’s easier to just succumb to it, enduring it for as long as we can until it starts to bring about subtle changes in our resolve. My favorite passage in The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (Harper, 1942) is Letter 12. You have seen this passage before in these pages. The demonic “Uncle Screwtape” describes perfectly the slippery slope that suffering and sin conspire to spread the contagion of evil. Their cumulative effect…
“…is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing…. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
In no place is a man or woman without defiance “edged away from the Light out into the Nothing” more than in prison. Like all prisons – whether they be prisons of iron, or fear, or trauma, or loneliness, or sickness, or pain – year upon year of it can set us upon the subtle turnings C.S. Lewis describes. For some, no doubt, resistance to the evils of our prisons seems futile.
Something happened recently – something profoundly humbling – that I thought about when I read the short passage at the top of this post from a priest-prisoner in Auschwitz with Maximilian Kolbe. The passage is from a published collection, “Depositions of Fellow Prisoners,” in the investigation of Maximilian Kolbe’s cause for sainthood.
More than 12,000 priests died in Auschwitz and the other camps of Germany and Poland, but the priest who wrote the passage atop this post survived. I wonder about those who perished there, those whose hope was siphoned off by the evil in their midst.
But for Maximilian Kolbe, resistance to evil was the one charism of a sacrificial priesthood available to him in a place where priesthood and sacrifice were deemed meaningless by worldly powers. Prison can quickly descend into “every man for himself,” but Maximilian lived and died on life’s road less traveled.
PRIESTHOOD LOST IN TRANSLATION
Over the last twenty of the nearly twenty-three years that I have been in this prison unjustly, there has been another priest here. He is a priest of my diocese, but I never knew him outside of prison. In fact, I barely knew him here. He was convicted of a sexual abuse charge in 1997, one alleged to have taken place long before then, and has been here ever since.
I know that in 2001, this priest acquiesced to a demand that he be voluntarily laicized (dismissed from the clerical state). Over the ensuing years, after 25 years of priesthood, he never again heard from our bishop or diocese. He was discarded. The prisoner-priest lost his faith. He became unable to be present at Mass for the next sixteen years. He was in a different prison unit than me, and I saw him only in rare passing.
However, when printed copies of some TSW posts were mailed to me, the sender would often send two. So, with the clandestine help of friends here, I started to send the other copy to this priest. I did not send him every post, just the ones about priesthood. One post reached an untapped well of faith and hope.
It was “St Maximilian Kolbe: A Knight at My Own Armageddon” posted one year ago this week. It was the middle of an important three-part post, and was the only post for which the priest sent back – via the same circuitous prison channels – a request to see more. These posts were the limits of our contact.
The same week that Lupe’s letter and photo arrived, Pornchai Moontri and I were climbing the multiple tiers of stairs on a Sunday morning for Mass in the prison chapel. As we passed the second floor landing, the priest mentioned above was just then emerging from the prison medical unit. I greeted him and shook his hand (another act of resistance as shaking someone’s hand is forbidden here) and then something strange happened.
Pornchai did not even know who he was and I did not want to put the priest on the spot so we parted company and proceeded up the next flight of stairs. Then Pornchai turned and said, “Do you want to come with us?” The priest paused for a moment looking puzzled, and then quietly followed us up the stairs. Before we entered the Chapel, I asked Pornchai to go find us some seats while the prisoner-priest told me that this is his first time at Mass in 16 years. He became reconciled, and we sat with him.
The next week – being an idiot sometimes – I took our usual seats and Pornchai stood glaring at me. “What are you doing?” he asked, and then pointed to that other priest still standing outside the door. “Go get him and bring him in to sit with us,” said Pornchai. God bless Pornchai!
In early July I spotted that prisoner-priest on the local news. He was appearing before the New Hampshire Parole Board with a request for medical parole because he was dying of cancer.
A physician who spoke at the hearing reported that he has no more than six months to live, and his care would be a burdensome expense for the state. After some callous remarks from a victim advocate on the State’s payroll about whether he “looks sick enough,” and whether twenty years in prison exacts sufficient reckoning, the Parole Board granted his medical parole.
ON THE MOVE
A week later, Pornchai and I were suddenly moved – he to one place and me to another. Apart for the first time in over ten years, this has been a great hardship for us both. We are trying to reunite, but once anything like this is done here, it resists being undone. Pornchai is trying to be moved to the same place I am in. I plan to write more of this very soon, and hopefully will have a happier ending for you.
The place I was sent to is the unit the other priest has been living in for the last twenty years. My first week there was his last week there, and we were able to walk each morning and talk. He is restored to faith and hope that our sufferings will make us ready for a better life.
I was with him early in the morning as he left prison a few days ago, and went home to his sister to die. I like to think that we managed to fill in some of the cold abyss in which our Church let him wander alone in exile these twenty years. I cannot imagine, even in my most vengeful thoughts, that such alienation and abandonment are what Christ summons forth from the Apostolic witness of His Church.
Most of all, I like to think we helped to prepare my brother priest for something essential imparted to us by a Patron Saint who guides us on a right path through prison: the gift of a noble defiance of evil while living the witness of a sacrificial priesthood.
Editor’s Note: For more on the story of Saint Maximilian Kolbe behind These Stone Walls, visit the following links:
- Saints and Sojourners: From Prison to Divine Mercy
- Suffering and St Maximilian Kolbe Behind These Stone Walls
- The Sign of the Cross: St Maximilian Kolbe’s Gift of Life
- Saints & Sacrifices: Maximilian Kolbe & Edith Stein at Auschwitz
- St Maximilian Kolbe, Patron of Prisoners, Priests & Bloggers
And soon to be published this summer by Father Michael Gaitley, MIC:
“Father Gaitley’s newest book brings us more deeply into Marian consecration. It follows the spiritual path of St Maximilian Kolbe who started a worldwide movement of Marian consecration to win the whole world for God. This movement began just three days after the final apparition at Fatima. I plan to write more about Consoling the Heart of Mary in coming months on These Stone Walls.” – Father Gordon MacRae
Ryan A. MacDonald says
I am struck by the comment by Dorothy Stein. The saddest part is that the people who need to read this post may never read it. They choose to keep their heads buried in the sand with a pretense that Catholics want to see accused priests banished to permanent exile. There are some few who will take a perverse joy in the plight of that priest whose soul has now been salvaged. If your bishop is listening to them and not to you, he has thrown in with the wrong crowd. Let us pray for him as well for by his behavior he needs our prayers even more than that exiled priest.
Mary Elizabeth says
I wish with all my heart that you were living in freedom but I am so glad you were there for this priest. Thanks for sharing this with us. St Maximilian pray for us.
MaryJean Diemer says
Hin Fr. Gordon!
Another soul saved by you and Max through the grace of God who certainly knows how to accomplish the impossible in meager conditions. You are always where he wants you to accomplish his work. Our prayers out here are meant to lift you both up to where the devil has no business to reach. Prayers will continue for you and all there and for your complete healing and for the grace of a beautiful death for the priest who is now reconciled with His Lord again. Yes, he is still a priest since man took away his faculties, not God.
Blessings and love, Jeannie
Patricia Katagiri says
God be with you and help you and P-Max in your separation. May Mary and all the Saints help your fellow priest/prisoner as he journeys home.
Patricia
Frances South says
Fr Gordon, thank you for this post. God is indeed good. God bless you and Pornchai Max and all those you come into contact with. You are all in my prayers, please say a prayer for me.
Claire from Maine says
I read the post and Pornchai Maximilian Moontri you are indeed a very important part of that post. God is certainly using you.
Dorothy R. Stein says
“I like to think that we managed to fill in some of the cold abyss in which our Church let him wander alone in exile these twenty years. I cannot imagine, even in my most vengeful thoughts, that such alienation and abandonment are what Christ summons forth from the Apostolic witness of His Church.”
That you even had to write such a thing is an abomination in the eyes of a just and merciful God. Thank you for writing this. Let us hope that those who lead us in that Apostolic witness will read and heed these words. This article is magisterial.
Anthony says
May God have mercy on us all.
Peter Haas says
Dear Fr. MacRae –
I am praying right now for you, Max and the priest you mentioned in this post.
Pete H.
Josee in Texas says
Many tears reading your post, dear Father. “He was reconciled” Thank God you were there… I know other priests who have been abandoned by their diocese..even though they have refused to be laicized. “You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” seems to escaped the notice of the hierarchy. God bless you, dear Father. Prayers and love from Me
Monica Harris says
Golly, Father Macrae.
That’ll teach me to be so impatient with God (not answering my prayers for your Mass kit back and your release from prison!) How ingenious is that?—if you had had your Mass kit back, you might not have been able to help reconcile this poor laicized priest back to attending the Mass in Communion. And if you had not been switched to the horrible crowded cell you would not have helped in the last week to give this “discarded” man peace as he was released from prison to die—to become another soul on its way to union with God in heaven, if he stays the course.
Also, we hear from Fr Byers that you and Pornchai Max may be back in the same cell again soon! Another miracle.
There is always time for God to answer our prayers—in His good time—and you are attuned to His Wisdom and His Mercy in such a holy way—only you could have done this particular favor, as His instrument—(with great assist from Pornchai, of course). Humbling…yes, but SO encouraging your “resistance” as God’s priest in these stone walls.
Annie from New York says
Well said Monica
We have the privilege of receiving posts from a living White Martyr of the Church. I am always trying to remember we must practice the faith,hope,charity and resistance that Fr Gordon does.
We must pray for him all the time – that he continues to respond so selflessly to help Jesus carry the Cross – in spite of all the sorrow in Fr G’s life. We are on very holy ground here
Dennis says
These inspiring words are far more help than the constant barrage of complaints and criticisms I’m used to seeing on so many traditional websites. We know things are very bad. We need uplifting, encouraging words to move us to action and keep us hopeful.
Thank you for this article.
Sue says
Thank you, Father, for much spiritual food to take to prayer in these difficult days. The story of the priest who was in prison with you would be truly heartbreaking without all the good you & Max did for him. Will be keeping him & his family in our prayers that he will hold onto hope & God’s Mercy as the time of his own death approaches. If the Church is truly a Mother, she never abandons a child, no matter how wayward! The acts of some priests were truly despicable, but not unforgiveable if they are truly repentant. They need the graces available through the Church as much as anyone else. So happy you & Max are together again! Sounds like the Holy Spirit moved a few hearts in the right direction so you two can be channels of grace in that place! God bless both of you!
Edward . Fullerton says
Fr Gordon , I thank you&……your helpers who go unnoticed. To those who go unrewarded ….same to you, IHS.
Claire Dion says
Fr. Gordon–Thank you for this great post. It filled me with joy to see the hand of God working through you and Pornchai. With all the bad stuff going on in this world it is so awesome to see a visible sign of Gods work. Your friend the priest will soon be home with his heavenly father and I know he will be watching over you and Pornchai. I pray that this miracle strengthens you both.
Love you Fr. Gordon and keeping you in my prayers.
Claire
Marguerita Carroll says
Well, anyone who thinks miracles don’t happen in the modern age only needs to read your posts Fr Gordon. Only God can bring good out of evil situations, and he is certainly using you to do that. I do hope your accommodation situation improves, and that you and Pornchai are reunited. I hope and pray too that justice will soon be done. But in the meantime you are working out your salvation. When you get to heaven there will be a group of people waiting there to welcome you, who would perhaps not be there but for you. You may not think it is down to you, but the very fact that you have surrendered yourself to Gods will means that he can use you to bring others back to him. I pray that I may have the same grace of surrender. God bless you all.
Tom says
Thank you for this article, Father Gordon. I like to think you and Pornchai were a balm of healing for that discarded priest. The bishops and their lawyers seem to think throwing accused priests into the street with their personnel records is somehow a good thing. Now that a cardinal finds himself in the dock in Australia, on what seems to be trumped up charges, perhaps the bishops will begin to rethink their policies now that the policies are effecting some of their own. I do not ever recall Jesus throwing a sinner into the street and discarding him. From Pope Francis on down, the clergy need to invite those who have engaged in sexual misconduct back into the fold and from outside the peripheries. Perhaps they need to recall the story of Alessandro Serenelli, who attempted to rape and then killed Maria Goretti. Our rector told his story of conversion and reconciliation in a recent homily. It made me think, could Alessandro have been welcomed back to Church today, in the era of SNAP and the Dallas Charter? Food for thought!
Fr. Stuart MacDonald says
Fr Gordon
Your posts keep teaching me about Divine Providence. Didn’t we just hear, a couple of weeks ago at Sunday Mass, that all things work for the good for those who love God? How much good you are able to do, in the midst of so much evil, precisely because you love God! Please keep teaching us, Father. Can you tell us the name of the priest? I should like to offer Mass for him and pray for him.
Ad multos annos, Father Gordon.
Fr Stuart
Penny piper says
I believe Satan is still choking on the blood of modern martyrs.
God bless you father MacRae and all the modern martyrs.
Christ is King.
Helen says
Father Gordon, from top to bottom, this post is heart-wrenching…and I am speechless.
It brings flood-gates of tears for God’s Holy Sons.
Praising God for you…thanking Him, that in you, He is bringing triumph to His glory thru you.
To God be the glory…thank you so much.
Your fan,
Helen