The Catholic Church has taken a step closer to recognizing the sainthood of a U.S. Army chaplain, who died in 1951 in a North Korean prison camp. Born in 1916 in Wichita, Kansas, Rev. Emil Kapaun volunteered for duty during the Korean War and was assigned to the Eight Cavalry regiment. In October and November 1950, the regiment was overrun by elements of the Chinese Army. Instead of retreating, Rev. Kapaun remained behind to minister to the dead and wounded American soldiers. Surrounded by hostile forces, Rev. Kapaun administered baptisms, heard confessions, offered Holy Communion, and celebrated Mass from an improvised altar he had fashioned on the front end of a jeep.
Once he was captured by hostile forces in November 1950, Rev. Kapaun risked death by demanding that his Chinese captors cease their executions of wounded American soldiers too injured to walk. Witness says that the Chinese prison guard deliberately attempted to starve Rev. Kapaun to death in order to stop his Christian ministry. Rev. Kapaun himself credited the prayers of others for saving him from his brushes with death. According to American soldiers who were released from the prison camps, Rev. Kapuan kept hundreds of them alive by stealing food and by force of his will. During the fierce winter of 195051, some 1,200 American prisoners of war died of starvation or illness in prison Camp 5 along the Yalu River.
On June 29, 2008, was opened the cause for recognizing the sainthood of Fr. Kapaun with a ceremony that was celebrated at St. John Nepomucene Catholic Church in Pilsen, Kansas. A Vatican investigator arrived on June 26 to examine claims of miracles attributed to intervention on the part of Rev. Kapaun. Among the claims are of 20 year-old Chase Kear, who apparently survived a head injury due to his family’s petitions offered to Rev. Kapaun. Rev. John Hotze of the Catholic Diocese of Wichita said that he "had never seen doctors who made such a compelling case for miracles occurring."
Info: Fr. Kapaun
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