Miracle of Father Kapaun

The Miracle of Father Kapaun: Priest, Soldier, and Korean War Hero by Roy Wenzl and Travis Heying, 140 pages

 

Emil Kapaun (kuh-PAWN, in case you're interested) had an unremarkable upbringing as the son of a farmer in a small Kansas town.  He grew up to become an ordinary parish priest, and volunteered as a chaplain during the Second World War, then reenlisted during the Korean War.  It was then that his life became remarkable.

 

When his position was overrun shortly after China entered the war, he refused to retreat, instead choosing captivity alongside the wounded soldiers in his care.  During the death march that followed, he inspired the other prisoners with his fortitude and selflessness.  In the POW camp, he scrounged for tin cans to make pots for boiling water, stole food from the guards' storehouse, and snuck into other barracks to encourage and pray with the inmates.  During reeducation sessions he defied the instructors, but without anger.  Increasingly a target of the camp authorities, he nonetheless urged his fellow prisoners to forgive their captors, and as he was taken away to his death he forgave the camp commander and asked for his forgiveness in return.  Of the 3000 to 4000 men held in the camp, 1300 died.  According to the survivors, hundreds more were saved by Father Kapaun.  In 2013, Emil Kapaun was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Meanwhile, at least three people claim to have been miraculously healed by his intercession, and it is their stories which dominate the final third of the book.

 

Wenzl and Heying, Kansas journalists who wrote a series of articles on Kapaun's life and legacy, have written a short, easy to read book that is, unfortunately, light on hard facts.  If it is sometimes muddled, it does benefit from the clear voices of many men and women who knew and loved Father Kapaun.