Father Emil Joseph Kapaun

Editor’s note: With the end of Sister Irene Hartman OP’s series on charisms, this issue begins the start of a new series by Sister Hartman, "Holy Ones of our Time." These may not necessarily be Saints with a capital S, but will be the stories of holy persons, maybe your neighbors, maybe friends you have known.

"My first ‘holy one’ will be our brother, military chaplain Father Emil Kapaun, who died in the Korean War in 1951. I also dedicate this story to my military brother Emil William Hartman, who often led his men in prayer and lost his own life as he cradled in his arms a dying comrade on a battlefield in Italy in 1944. May all those who died defending our peace be received into the gentle arms of Jesus."

Father Kapaun, named by the Vatican as "Servant of God," ministered lovingly and tirelessly in the parishes of Timken and Spearville. Thus he can be called "our brother Emil." But he will always be remembered as the fearless chaplain in the Korean conflict.

Born April 21, 1916, to Enos and Elizabeth Kapaun on a farm about three miles from Pilsen, Kansas, Emil knew in early childhood the hardships of planting, harvesting, and caring for farm animals. Perhaps these experiences on the farm prepared Emil for the hardships of being a prisoner in a North Korean prison.

The wood-framed house of the Kapaun family had no electricity, no running water; the house was heated by firewood or coal. The focal point of the Pilsen Bohemian community was the parish church called St. John Nepomucene. The pastor, Father John Sklenar, a Czech, was a follow-the-book priest who encouraged a priestly vocation for Emil, and subsequently provided much-needed financial assistance for his education, beginning with Emil’s entrance into Conception College in Missouri. After his ordination in 1940, Father Emil’s first assignment was to serve as assistant to Father Sklenar until Father’s resignation in 1943. Father Emil then became pastor in Pilsen until July, 1944.

A playful, fun-loving lad, Emil was not beyond trapping a skunk on the way to school, much to the chagrin of his Precious Blood Sister teachers (he was sent home to change clothes), skating and fishing at the nearby creek, trying out the family car long before he learned to drive, playing a trick on his mother’s cow by donning one of her dresses to calm the skittish animal, and meeting a kingfisher that he thought was a stork and imploring the stork to bring him a baby brother (brother Eugene was born in 1924).

To become an altar boy, Emil practiced the Latin Mass prayers while kneeling in the backyard. He was a good student but had to work in the fields until late September and be dismissed from classes in the spring when chores took precedence over textbooks. However, Emil finished grade school in six years. He was expert in woodworking, in debate, in poetry, and in the Bohemian language.

After Conception College, Bishop August Schwertner sent Emil to Kenrick Theological Seminary in St. Louis in 1936, but the bishop told him he would have to provide for his own textbooks and transportation. In Kenrick, Emil was a contemporary of Aloysius Preisner. The study of Bohemian was important for the lad and one summer he was sent to Caldwell to do street preaching in Bohemian. His visits with his family were very restricted because of finances.

As Father Sklenar’s assistant, Father Emil found that the two were very different temperments; Emil learned humility and obedience the hard way, both virtues that served him well as chaplain in wartime. While acting as assistant, Father Emil also was the Auxiliary Chaplain at Herington Air Base near Pilsen. Ever close to the surface was Emil’s desire to become a military chaplain, a desire that both Bishop Mark Carroll and Bishop Christian Winklemann hesitated to encourage. When Father John Vesecky was appointed to Pilsen, Father Emil was free to begin in earnest his career as military chaplain.