Father Emil Kapaun Welcomed Home

by CNS · September 16, 2021

(Left) Father Emil Kapaun, a U.S. Army chaplain. (CNS photo/St. Louis Review).(Right)Father Kapaun is pictured celebrating Mass from the hood of a jeep on Oct. 7, 1950, in South Korea. A candidate for sainthood, he died May 23, 1951, in a North Korean prisoner of war camp. (CNS photo/courtesy U.S. Army medic Raymond Skeehan)

By Christopher Riggs – The flag-draped casket was empty during a memorial Mass in Wichita for Father Emil J. Kapaun on July 29, 1953.

The casket at Father Kapaun’s funeral Mass on Sept. 29, won’t be vacant. He is coming home.

The memorial Mass in 1953 in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception was celebrated a little over two weeks after word of Father Kapaun’s death reached Bishop Mark K. Carroll on July 12, 1953. He was notified the U.S. Army chaplain had died in a North Korean prisoner of war camp on May 23, 1951.

Seventy years after his death, a U.S. government forensics team in Hawaii announced March 4 that it had identified his remains.

It was previously believed that Father Kapaun had been buried in an unmarked grave by the Yalu River in North Korea, along with thousands of others deemed “unaccounted for.”

But according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, who contacted Ray Kapaun (Father Kapaun’s nephew), his remains had been buried in the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii for decades.

It is likely that Father Kapaun’s remains had been transferred when the remains of about 4,000 prisoners were exchanged as part of the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement, Carter said. Over 800 of those were unidentified

Father Kapaun was ordained a priest for the Wichita Diocese on June 9, 1940. He was a U.S. Army chaplain in World War II and the Korean War and held the rank of captain. A candidate for sainthood, he has the title “Servant of God.”

Scott Carter, coordinator of the Father Kapaun Guild, will be flying Sept. 20 to Honolulu with Wichita Bishop Carl A. Kemme and Father David Lies, vicar general of the diocese, as well as with Ray Kapaun, Father Kapaun’s nephew, and his wife, and the late priest’s niece to formally accept his remains and bring them back to the Diocese of Wichita.

Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu will celebrate a Mass Sept. 23 in the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace as a ceremonial send-off of Father Kapaun’s remains. The Mass is scheduled to be live-streamed from the Honolulu cathedral’s website at 11 p.m. central time.

“It’s a moment for the (Hawaiian) people to recognise someone who has been buried in their midst … and a send-off, hopefully, a future saint,” Carter said.

U.S. Army Forces Command Chaplain Col. Rajmund Kopec and U.S. Air Force Maj. Christina Roberts, Father Kapaun’s niece, will officially escort Father Kapaun’s remains on a commercial airline flight leaving Honolulu on Sept. 24. Family and diocesan representatives also will be on the journey that will conclude on Sept. 25, when a flight from Dallas lands at Eisenhower National Airport in Wichita.

“The military escort stays with the remains along the way,” Carter said, “which is a great way to honour those who have fallen and ensure their security. They are never left alone, they are loved and not forgotten.”

Father Kapaun’s remains will be delivered to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita on Sept. 27 for a vespers service for the priests of the diocese.

A lot of people now believe that Father Kapaun’s soul is now in heaven, he said, adding that the diocese is waiting for validation from the Vatican regarding his cause for sainthood.

In general, one miracle attributed to the sainthood candidate’s intercession and verified by church authorities is needed for beatification; a second such miracle would be needed for canonisation.