Venerable Father Emil Joseph Kapaun

Born: April 20, 1916
Death: May 23, 1951
Cause for Canonization Opened: 
Declared Venerable: February 2025

Venerable Father Emil Joseph Kapaun, born in Kansas on Holy Thursday in 1916, was raised on a farm honing skills that would eventually serve him well as a prisoner of war (POW) later in life. He was active in his home parish of St. John Nepomucene and discerned a call to the priesthood and entered Conception Seminary — a boarding high school and college — at age 14. After graduation, he began his studies for the priesthood at Kenrick Seminary. Ordained in 1940, he celebrated his first Mass in his home parish for 1,200 people where he was assigned assistant pastor. A few years later he was also assigned as the auxiliary chaplain to the Army airbase nearby, during this assignment he felt the call to “spend himself for God,” and joined the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps in 1944 and reported to his first overseas assignment in 1945. Released from service, he attended Catholic University of America to get a Master’s in Education and upon completion was assigned pastor, where parishioners remember his sense of humor and receiving First Communion from him. He repeatedly requested to re-enlist, stating his priestly duty was with the men in the military. Promoted to Captain and sent to Japan, his unit was then sent to assist South Korea after the invasion of North Korea. He was a fearless soldier, risking his life to minister to those on the front lines, often using the hood of his jeep as an altar on which to say Mass. He received a Bronze Star Medal in August of 1950, was captured as a POW in November of 1950, where he continued to minister to other prisoners physically and spiritually, sneaking into their huts to pray with them. In 1951, he fell ill with pneumonia and a blood clot in his leg, dying as a POW at 35 years old. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on April 12, 2013.

Read his story of relentless bravery and service to those in the service here.

Resources: 

• Prayer for the Canonization of Fr. Emil Kapaun
  
• Article: Kansas Medal of Honor POW returns home (His remains return home 70 years after his death)
• Article: Fr. Emil Kapaun returns home to Kansas

Watch: Mini Documentary: Fr. Kapaun Comes Home