by Jay Nies
Abridged from The Catholic Missourian
The crucifix in Kapaun Mt. Carmel School in Wichita was carved in honor of a chaplain who helped shepherd many prisoners of war through their own Way of the Cross.
That chaplain was Venerable Father Emil J. Kapaun (1916-51), a candidate for sainthood, who hailed from Archbishop Shawn McKnight’s home diocese.
“Father Kapaun was an example of holiness for all of us,” said Archbishop McKnight, while discussing the recent announcement that Father Kapaun’s sainthood cause had reached an important milestone.
Archbishop McKnight was installed as archbishop of Kansas City in Kansas on May 27.
Pope Francis on Feb. 24 authorized the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to promulgate a decree naming Father Kapaun as Venerable.
In its decree — which also addressed the canonization causes of six other individuals — the Vatican said it recognized Father Kapaun’s “offering of life,” a criterion for sainthood established by Pope Francis in a 2017 document on sainthood causes.
Archbishop McKnight noted that “holiness looks different according to who you are. And holiness isn’t gonna look the same on everybody.”
In the case of Father Kapaun, it looked like a country priest who ministered to soldiers in battle during World War II (1939-45), went home to his diocese and volunteered to return to the front when the call went out for more chaplains during the Korean War (1951-53).
“He was willing to go back!” said Archbishop McKnight. “He had served in World War II, and he volunteered to go back, because they were still in need.”
Father Kapaun knew what he was getting himself into and chose to get into it anyway.
By that, he set a prime example of Catholic masculinity.
“He was very brave,” said Archbishop McKnight. “He was manly in a way that was not, as we unfortunately understand it a lot of the time, as being filled with might. Rather, it was his ability to make self-sacrifice.”
“It’s not the ability to inflict one’s will on others,” the archbishop added. “It’s the ability to give oneself completely and make the ultimate sacrifice. The kind of self-surrender that Our Lord, who was the greatest example of manliness, showed us on the cross.”
Father Kapaun was captured by Korean and communist Chinese forces and sent to a military prison camp in Pyoktong, North Korea.
He was known for never leaving anyone behind while they were on death marches in the Korean camps.
And while their captors were trying to indoctrinate the prisoners with communist propaganda, Father Kapaun would stand up after they’d finish speaking and tell the prisoners, “Don’t believe any of that.”
“That was his character,” said Archbishop McKnight. “And it got him in trouble.”
Prioritizing the needs of others over his own health, Father Kapaun developed pneumonia and a blood clot while imprisoned. He was denied medication and died in the prison camp May 23, 1951, at age 35.
He blessed his captors before dying.
For decades after the war, his earthly remains were kept with those of other unidentified servicemen and women at a military repository in Hawaii, awaiting identification.
Different kind of holy
All of the men in the prison camp found in Father Kapaun a familiar soul.
“He had a gift for relating to people,” said Archbishop McKnight. “There was a real ‘humanness’ in his sense of humor and practicality.”
He ministered to everyone, regardless of their religious affiliation.
“Protestant, Jewish, as well as Catholic fellow soldiers in the camp all respected him and spoke highly of him,” said Archbishop McKnight.
The priest’s holiness was thoroughly expressed in his humanity — not above or despite it.
“I think that’s part of the adjustment a lot of people need in their conception of what holiness looks like,” said the archbishop.
The crucifix now prominently displayed in Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School was carved by a Jewish former prisoner of war who had spent time in the same prison camp where Father Kapaun died.
“He never knew Father Kapaun, but he was so taken by the stories he was hearing about him from his fellow soldiers, he was inspired to carve that crucifix,” said Archbishop McKnight.
The chaplain’s ministry was one of radical presence: “To have a sense that someone cared for them that much in their hellhole, who was there with them,” the archbishop said.
Lord of the dance
Archbishop McKnight was working at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ headquarters in Washington in 2013 when President Barack Obama posthumously presented Father Kapaun the Congressional Medal of Honor.
“I was very fortunate to be at the ceremonies at the White House and the Pentagon and to see some incredible things from the inside,” said Archbishop McKnight.
One of these involved a young man waltzing in the White House entryway.
“This young man from a country parish was in a pole-vaulting accident in his senior year in high school, leaving him paralyzed,” said Archbishop McKnight. “He wasn’t expected to survive, let alone ever walk again.”
The young man’s inexplicable recovery took place in the months after his injury, following fervent appeals to God through Father Kapaun’s intercession.
“So, there at the White House, the Marine Band was playing music for the reception, and this young man had his eye on this cute young woman, and he just went up and asked her to dance, and she said, ‘OK’ and they started dancing,” the archbishop recounted.
Almost everyone there knew his story. They all stood aside and basked in what was likely the aftermath of a miracle.
“You see? That happened in our White House!” Archbishop McKnight said. “The seat of the presidency of the United States.”
Homecoming
DNA testing in 2021 yielded a match between Father Kapaun’s earthly remains in the Hawaii repository and several of his living relatives.
Once there was a positive identification, his body could be returned to Wichita for a Mass of Christian Burial, some 50 years after his death.
It had all the trappings of a state funeral.
“They had generals there, they had a caisson and the horses in missing man formation and all kinds of military personnel involved,” the archbishop recalled.
Archbishop McKnight was able to return to Wichita as a visiting prelate to concelebrate the funeral Mass at a local convention center, the only venue large enough to accommodate a crowd that size.
Afterward came a military procession from the convention center to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita, where a crypt had been built for Father Kapaun.
Archbishop McKnight then participated in the burial service for Father Kapaun in the same cathedral where the archbishop was ordained to the priesthood in 1994.
“Father Kapaun is a role model for all of us who profess the Christian faith, not just priests,” he said at the time of the funeral and burial. “I am honored to participate in this historic funeral and pray that his example will inspire all priests throughout the world.”
More information about Father Kapaun’s life, ministry and sainthood cause can be found in the Oct. 8, 2021, issue of The Leaven and online at: frkapaun.org.
Contributing to this report were Gina Christian of OSV News; Christopher Riggs, editor of Catholic Advance in Wichita; and Jean M. Schildz, formerly a reporter for the St. Louis Review in St. Louis.
