Father Emil J. Kapaun, 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, currently in Rome’s Gemelli hospital for severe respiratory illness.
On Feb. 24, the pope authorized the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to promulgate a decree naming Father Kapaun as “Venerable.”
Ordained in 1940 as a priest of the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, Father Kapaun served as a U.S. 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 age 35. His cause for canonization was opened in 1993, giving him the title “Servant of God.”
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