Emil Kapaun

Emil Joseph Kapaun
Chaplain (Captain) Emil Joseph Kapaun
Born	April 20, 1916(1916-04-20) Pilsen, Kansas
Died	May 23, 1951(1951-05-23) (aged 35) Pyoktong, North Korea
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1944–1951
Rank	Captain
Battles/wars	World War II Korean War
Awards	Distinguished Service Cross Legion of Merit Bronze Star Medal with V (Valor) Device Purple Heart

Emil Joseph Kapaun (April 20, 1916 – May 23, 1951) was a Roman Catholic priest and United States Army chaplain who died in the Korean War. The Roman Catholic Church has declared him a Servant of God and he is a candidate for sainthood.

Early life

Emil Joseph Kapaun was born on April 20, 1916, and grew up on a farm three miles southwest of Pilsen, Kansas. His parents were Enos and Elizabeth Kapaun, Czech immigrants

He attended and graduated from Pilsen High School in May 1930. Kapaun graduated from Conception Abbey seminary college in Conception, Missouri, in June 1936. He then attended Kenrick Theological Seminary (now Kenrick-Glennon Seminary), St. Louis, Missouri, where he was ordained in June 1940. Kapuan also served as auxiliary chaplain at Herington Army Airfield nearby Pilsen. In December 1943, Fr. Kapaun was appointed pastor to replace Fr. Sklenar who had retired. After serving in the Pilsen area under the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wichita, Kapaun joined the army in July 1944.

U.S. Army service

On June 9, 1940, Kapaun was ordained a priest at what is now Newman University in Wichita, Kansas. He celebrated his first Mass at St. John Nepomucene in Pilsen, Kansas.

In 1943, Kapaun is appointed auxiliary chaplain at the Herington Army Airfield near Herington, Kansas.

Fr. Kapaun began his military chaplaincy at Camp Wheeler, Georgia, in October 1944. He and one other chaplain ministered to approximately 19,000 service men and women.

He was sent to India and served in the Burma Theater. Fr. Kapaun was promoted to Captain in January 1946 and returned stateside in May 1946. Kapaun was discharged in 1946 and went to the Catholic University of Washington where in 1948 he earned an M.A. in education.

In September 1948, he re-enlisted in the Army. He resumed his chaplaincy at Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas. Fr. Kapaun left his parents and Pilsen for the last time in December 1949.

In July 1950, Kapaun was ordered to Korea from Japan, a month after North Korea invades South Korea.

In January 1950 he was stationed near Mt. Fuji, Japan as a military chaplain until alerted into combat in July 1950. In the same month, Fr. Kapaun's unit, the 35th Brigade from Ft. Bliss landed in South Korea during a big invasion. He was constantly on the move northward until his capture by Chinese Communists in November 1950.

In November 1950, he was captured near Unsan, North Korea. On May 23, 1951, he died in a prison camp in Pyoktong, North Korea.

His main complaint was lack of sleep for several weeks at a time. He constantly ministered to the dead and dying while performing baptisms, hearing first Confessions, offering Holy Communion and celebrating Mass from an improvised altar set up on the front end of an army jeep. He constantly would lose his Mass Kit, jeep and trailer to enemy fire. He told how he was thoroughly convinced that the prayers of many others were what had saved him so many times up until his capture. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal in September 1950 just before his capture in November 1950. Kapaun was captured in November 1950 and died in a POW camp on May 23, 1951. He was buried in a mass grave near the Yalu River. He was noted among his fellow POWs as one who would steal coffee and tea (and a pot to heat them in) from the Communist guards.

On August 18, 1951, Kapaun is posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions at Unsan.

An G.E. Theater television play, entitled, "The Good Thief" aired on CBS in the late 1950s and starred Spencer Tracy.

Military Service Decorations

• Distinguished Service Cross
• Legion of Merit
• Bronze Star Medal with V (Valor) Device
• Purple Heart
• Prisoner of War Medal
• American Campaign Medal (WWII)
• Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (WWII) with One Campaign Star
• World War II Victory Medal
• National Defense Service Medal
• Korean Service Medal with Two Campaign Stars
• United Nations Service Medal - Korea
• Republic of Korea War Service Medal
• Presidential Unit Citation, U.S. Army
• Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation

Possible Medal of Honor

In 2000, U.S. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) began a campaign to award the Medal of Honor to Kapaun.

Before leaving office on September 16, 2009, Secretary of the Army Pete Geren sent Tiahrt a letter, agreeing that Kapaun was worthy of the honor. Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also agreed. Seven chaplains have been awarded the Medal of Honor. Tiahrt hoped the United States Congress will approve a bill awarding the Medal of Honor to Kapaun, for signing by President Barack Obama.

The current version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (Senate Bill 1867, Section 586) contains an authorization and a request to the President to award the Medal of Honor to Emil Kapaun postumously for acts of valor performed by him during the Battle of Unsan on November 1 and 2, 1950 and while a prisoner of war until his death on May 23, 1953 as a chaplain in the 8th Cavalry Regiment during the Korean War.

Possible Sainthood

In 1993, Kapaun is named Servant of God by the Roman Catholic Church, the first step toward possible canonization.

Personal holiness

The following is a general narrative from the many reports of Fr. Kapaun's ordeal as a prisoner of war given by many repatriated American soldiers after their release from prison camps. He was most remembered for his great humility, bravery, his constancy, his love and kindness and solicitude for his fellow prisoners. "He was their hero... their admired and beloved "padre." He kept up the G.I.'s morale, and most of all, allowed a lot of men to become good Catholics."

Reports received noted that Fr. Kapaun's feet had become badly frozen, but that he continued to administer to the sick and wounded. He continuously went out under heavy mortar and shelling to rescue wounded and dying soldiers at personal risk of being captured or killed.

Many accounts were given as to the many creature comforts he provided the many of his comrades of the 8th Cavalry Regiment during imprisonment. They were both spiritual and physical. He provided endless hours of prayer and what nourishment he could find to all he could to keep them from starving to death.

Fr. Kapaun, weakened as months passed on, managed to lead Easter sunrise service on Sunday, March 25, 1951. He was so weak that the prison guards took him to the hospital where he died of pneumonia on May 23, 1951. Fr. Kapaun received a citation for the Distinguished Service Cross.

A detailed account of Fr. Kapaun's life is recounted in Fr. Arthur Tonne's Chaplain Kapaun: Patriot Priest of the Korean Conflict. The author writes:

"In a very definite sense, we are all beneficiaries from the life of Fr. Kapaun. He has left us a stirring example of devotion to duty. He has passed on to us a spirit of tolerance and understanding. He has given us a share of dauntless bravery — of body and soul. He has transmitted to every one of us a new appreciation of America, and a keener, more realistic understanding of our country's greatest enemy — godlessness, now stalking the world in the form of communism. He has bequeathed a picture of Christ-like life. What Fr. Kapaun willed to us cannot be contained in memorials, however costly or beautiful. It is a treasure for the human soul — the spirit of one who loved and served God and man — even unto death."

When Fr. Kapaun was assigned to the Eighth Cavalry regiment — which was surrounded and overrun by the Chinese army in North Korea in October and November 1950 — he stayed behind with the wounded when the Army retreated. He allowed his own capture, then risked death by preventing Chinese executions of wounded Americans too injured to walk.

Canonization process

The Vatican is now examining whether a medical healing that took place in Sedgwick County, Kansas, can be considered a miracle by the Roman Catholic Church. He may be on the road to sainthood and could be considered only the third American-born saint.

Possible miracles

2008

On Sunday, June 29, 2008, the Opening Ceremony which officially opens the Cause for Sainthood for Fr. Emil Kapaun was made on Father Kapaun Day held at St. John Nepomucene Catholic Church in Pilsen, Kansas.

On June 26, 2009, Dr. Andrea Ambrosi, the Roman Postulator for Father Kapaun's cause for canonization arrived in Wichita in order to interview doctors in relation to alleged miraculous events. Among these, the claims of 20-year-old Chase Kear who survived a severe head injury last year in part, because he and his family claim, they successfully petitioned Fr. Emil Kapaun to intercede for them.

Kear, a member of the Hutchinson Community College track team, fell on his head during pole vaulting practice in October 2008 but, it is said, was miraculously healed despite being near death.

The Rev. John Hotze, the judicial vicar for the Diocese of Wichita, and trained in Canon Law, will assist in investigating Kear's case. Fr. Hotze has spent eight years investigating the proposed sainthood of Kapaun. The Catholic Church has considered canonizing Fr. Kapaun ever since soldiers were liberated from Korean prisoner-of-war camps in 1953 and retold tales of Kapaun's heroism and faith. The Wichita diocese has continued receiving reports of miracles involving Fr. Kapaun. He is being considered for possible designation as a martyr.

2011

On May 7, 2011, Nick Dellasega collapsed at a Get Busy Living 5K race in Pittsburg, KS (honoring the memory of Dylan Meier). Due to a series of coincidences, Nick survived, even though he had seemingly died on the scene. His childhood friend, EMT Micah Ehling, is quoted by the Eagle as saying "I know what a face looks like when the soul leaves the body. And that's what Nick looked like". Some bystanders attribute Nick's survival to the devotion of his cousin, Jonah Dellasega, who fell to his knees at the scene and prayed to Father Emil Kapaun. In a strange coincidence not reported by the Eagle, Dylan Meier, in whose memory the 5K was being held, was slated to teach English in Korea at the time of his death.

Skeptics point out that Kapaun's spirit could not possibly have orchestrated the bizarre coincidences that saved Nick's life, because some of them were set in motion long before Nick collapsed (including a visit by Nick's uncle, Mark, a medical doctor from Greenville, N.C.). However, believers insist Father Kapaun intervened to save Nick's life; The Eagle reports: "The coincidences are strange enough and the prayer notable enough that a Catholic church investigator has reported Nick's story to the Vatican, which happens to have a representative in Wichita again, sizing up Father Emil Kapaun for sainthood."

Gallery

Chaplain (Captain) Emil Kapaun A statue in Pilsen, Kansas, depicting Kapaun helping a wounded comrade

Memorials

• Kapaun Memorial Chapel, Seoul, South Korea; dedicated November 4, 1953.
• Kapaun Religious Retreat House, Ōiso, Japan; dedicated December 1954.
• Kapaun Barracks and Chapel, United States Military Base, Kaiserslautern, Germany; dedicated June 7, 1955.
• Father Kapaun Memorial Technical School, Kwanju, Korea; dedicated Summer 1955.
• Chaplain Kapaun Memorial High School, Wichita, Kansas; dedicated May 12, 1957. Later to become Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School, 1971.
• Bronze Door Panel, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Wichita, Kansas; dedicated February 1997.
• Chaplain Kapaun Korean War Memorial Site, Pilsen, Kansas; dedicated June 3, 2001.
• Chaplain Kapaun Complex, Fort Riley, Kansas; dedicated 2001, 2002.
• Emil Kapaun Knights of Columbus Fourth Degree Assembly, Katy, TX.
• "The Good Thief", a General Electric Theater television production, starred Spencer Tracy as Father Kapaun.

See also

• Roman Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA#Chaplains in Korean War
• Roman Catholicism in the United States#American Catholic Servants of God, Venerables, Beatified, and Saints
• Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School in Wichita

Further reading

• A Saint Among Us, Father Kapaun Guild (Wichita Chancery Office) KS, 2009.
• The Story of Chaplain Kapaun, Fr. (Msgr.) Arthur Tonne, 1954, Didde Publishers, Emporia KS.
• A Shepherd in Combat Boots, William L. Maher, 1997, Burd Street Press, Shippensburg, PA, ISBN 1-57249-305-4

External links

• The Miracle of Father Emil Kapaun
• Catholic War Veterans - Emil Kapaun
• Website for Kapaun's Cause of Sainthood
• Father Emil Kapaun's life, deeds compiled; Roy Wenzl; The Wichita Eagle; December 28, 2010.
• Fr. Emil Kapaun: The Good Thief

Stages of canonization in the Catholic Church
Servant of God   →   Venerable   →   Blessed   →   Saint