A Kansas military chaplain who served during two wars is a step further along the path to possible sainthood, thanks to a declaration made by Pope Francis.
The Holy Father is currently in Rome’s Gemelli hospital for a severe respiratory illness. On 24 February, the pope authorised the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to promulgate a decree naming Father Emil J Kapaun as “Venerable” over his voluntary sacrifice of his life in the face of certain, untimely death, accompanied by the exercise of Christian virtues, during the Korean War.
Ordained in 1940 as a priest of the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, Father Kapaun served as a US Army chaplain in World War II and in the Korean War with the rank of captain.
The priest’s tireless ministry, marked by constant danger to his life, culminated in a prisoner of war camp at Pyoktong, North Korea, where he blessed his communist captors before dying of pneumonia and a blood clot in 1951 at the age of 35.
Prior to his forcible move to the camp’s hospital, where patients were left to die, he stilled the protests of his fellow POWs, saying, “Don’t worry about me. I’m going where I always wanted to go, and when I get there, I’ll say a prayer for all of you.”