Captain (Chaplain, Fr.) Emil Kapaun returned to the arms of his Heavenly Father on May 23, 1951 from what could well be considered hell on Earth – a North Korean PoW camp.
By all accounts, he was an incredibly brave, courageous, humble, generous man who was the personification of a servant of Christ and an example upon which we can all model our lives. These attributes are being recognized in two completely different venues.
The United States Congress has passed a resolution asking Secretary of Defense Panetta and President Obama to award Fr. Kapaun the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions tending his flock both before their capture and in the ensuing months of hardship in the prison camp.
The Holy See has opened an official inquiry into his actions and has conferred upon him the honor Servant of God, the first step toward possible beatification and canonization.
On 2 November 1950, Father Kapaun made the decision that led to his death.
The Korean war chaplain was in the middle of a firefight, with the American forces overrun by Chinese soldiers outside a crossroads town called Unsan in North Korea.
Lighting forest fires to frustrate US reconnaissance planes, the Chinese surrounded the Americans and pressed in, attacking with small arms, grenades and even bayonets.
Meanwhile, Chaplain Emil Kapaun, a Catholic priest from a farming village in Kansas, gathered the wounded in a dug-out shelter made of logs and straw.
Fr. Kapaun is on the right, helping a wounded soldier
Humble beginnings and a humble end provide very fitting bookends to a life very well-lived,
If President Obama awards him the Medal of Honor, he will be just the fifth Catholic priest to win the award – out of 3,458 American soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who have won it.
If he is named a saint, Kapaun will be the first member of the US military so honoured.
“He gave his life for those people that he was serving,” says Father John Hotze, an investigator for the diocese advocating for Kapaun’s canonisation.
“At the time of his death, he was giving his life for his fellow prisoners… and he was that example of Christ present in the world today.”
The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
— Numbers 6:24-26