Venerable Fr Kapaun, US military chaplain who died in North Korea
Pope Francis has approved the promulgation of the decree on the “offering of life” of Fr Emil Joseph Kapaun, a priest from Kansas who died in 1951 in a North Korean POW camp.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – The Catholic Church may soon have a new blessed who died in captivity in North Korea.
At the Gemelli Hospital, Pope Francis met yesterday with his closest aides, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and the Substitute for General Affairs, Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, to address some urgent issues, including authorising the promulgation of some decrees of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
One is about the “offering of life” of Fr Emil Joseph Kapaun, a United States Army Chaplain who died at the age of 36 on 23 May 1951 in a prison camp in Pyokton, a city north of Pyongyang, North Korea, during the Korean War.
The "offering of life" is a pathway to beatification Pope Francis introduced in 2017, that includes the recognition of heroic virtues or martyrdom. It is the “free and voluntary offering of life and the heroic acceptance out of charity of certain death in a short term”.
In practice, it is the witness of life by one who, freely and because of Christ's charity towards his brothers and sisters, accepts to place himself in a condition that – even in the absence of a specific persecutor – leads him or her to an untimely death.
In the decrees published today by the Vatican Press Office, Fr Kapuan is not alone in “offering of life”. The other is Salvo d'Acquisto, an Italian carabiniere who in 1943 claimed responsibility for an attack that he had not carried out, and for this was executed by the Nazis, to avoid reprisals against innocent civilians.
By recognising their “offering of life”, they become “venerable” for the Church, waiting for a miracle through their intercession to make beatification possible.
Fr Emil Kapaun was born on 20 April 1916 into a Catholic family of farmers of German Bohemian origin in Pilsen, Diocese of Wichita in Kansas. He entered the seminary at the age of 14 and was ordained a diocesan priest in 1940.
Three years later, during the Second World War, his bishop tasked him as auxiliary chaplain at a military base in Kansas which led to a calling to live his ministry permanently alongside soldiers.
In the last months of that war, he was sent to minister US forces first in Burma (modern-day Myanmar) and later India. In late 1949 he left for the East with the 1st Cavalry Division stationed in Yokohama, Japan.
In June 1950, Kim Il Sung's Korean People's Army launched its invasion of South Korea, starting the Korean War.
Fr Kapaun landed with his fellow soldiers in Korea a month later and found himself on the front line, administering the sacraments and helping the wounded, a commitment that was also honoured with a Bronze Star Medal with a V for Valour.
In November 1950, when the North Koreans counterattacked with Chinese support, he chose to stay with the soldiers. For this reason, he ended up as a prisoner of war in the Pyokton camp soon after.
Despite the very harsh conditions, with temperatures dropping to -20 degrees, he tirelessly gave comfort to his fellow prisoners over the following months.
In March 1951 he still managed to celebrate Easter, before he was moved to the sick ward after contracting pneumonia that would lead to his death less than two months later.
It should be noted that along with Fr Kapaun, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints is also engaged in another ongoing cause that concerns the Korean War, namely the martyrdom of Bishop Francis Hong Yong-ho of Pyongyang and 80 other Catholics (49 priests, seven religious and 25 lay people) killed in communist persecution.
Promoted by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Seoul (who is the apostolic administrator of Pyongyang), the diocesan phase was closed in 2022 and the acts were transmitted to Rome.
On that occasion, CBCK President Bishop Mathias Ri Iong-hoon of Suwon said: “In the harsh reality of a still divided country in which the separation between North and South and ideological conflicts continue today, I sincerely hope that the promotion of the beatification of these martyrs will serve as a foundation for reconciliation and unity.”
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