Pope deems Fr. Emil Kapaun ‘Venerable’

That’s Venerable Emil Kapaun to you – and all his friends. That’s because Pope Francis, though hospitalized with pneumonia, elevated Fr. Kapaun to that official status on the night of Monday, Feb. 24. 

The news hit the Diocese of Wichita before the sun rose on the following day, with Fr. Kapaun Guild Coordinator Scott Carter catching wind of it around 6 a.m., when a friend from the East Coast texted him.

“I don’t normally get texts at that hour,” he said, “so I checked it.”

Carter immediately reached out to Fr. John Hotze, but the diocese’s Episcopal Delegate for Fr. Kapaun’s Cause for Beatification and Canonization would not get the news for another couple hours because he did not turn on his phone until 8 a.m. 

“It was a good way to start my day,” he said.

The news not only signifies that Fr. Kapaun has passed a major checkpoint toward official recognition that he is a saint, it also signifies that that the Catholic Diocese of Wichita has done well on its homework assignment to advance that cause. 

“Everyone takes on projects in life, and it feels good to see it to completion,” Fr. Hotze said. “We have done our part in conveying and proving to the Church that Fr. Kapaun is a saint.”

Heaven will decide the rest, he said, but the diocese and its faithful still have a significant role.

Venerable, Blessed, Saint

The Church, especially since the time of Vatican II, has emphasized that all Christians are called to be saints. Those who are officially canonized as saints, the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops’ website explains, “are persons in heaven who lived heroically virtuous lives, offered their life for others, or were martyred for the faith, and who are worthy of imitation.” 

The USCCB goes on to explain the official Church procedures entail three steps to sainthood in the form of candidates first being deemed “venerable,” then “blessed,” and then “saint.” “Venerable is the title given to a deceased person recognized formally by the pope as having lived a heroically virtuous life or offered their life,” the council said. “To be beatified and recognized as a blessed, one miracle acquired through the candidate’s intercession is required in addition to recognition of heroic virtue or offering of life. Canonization requires a second miracle after beatification. The pope may waive these requirements. A miracle is not required prior to a martyr’s beatification, but one is required before canonization.”

Now that Fr. Kapaun has reached the venerable stage, Carter predicts his job may not change much. “We will continue to share his story and encourage prayer, which is the biggest portion of what the Fr. Kapaun Guild does,” he said. “We will certainly collect medical data and testimony from people who sought his intercession about potential miracles, but a lot of the day-to-day is spreading the word.”

Fr. Hotze says his work on Fr. Kapaun’s cause has only increased his confidence in its rightness, but also points to the relatively few native-born U.S. citizens to be canonized, and only two such men – Blessed Solanus Casey and Blessed Stanley Rother – have reached the step of beatification. “Although I always felt we would see this day, this is still relatively new for us in the United States,” he said. “If Fr. Kapaun is promoted to sainthood relatively quickly, he will be the first male American-born saint. The other American men who were named saints came here as missionaries and such. Among all the saints born in the United States (since the Declaration of Independence), there are only Katharine Drexel and Elizabeth Ann Seton.”

Young Emil Kapaun strikes what may be considered a baseball card pose for a photo at the family home outside of Pilsen. Although the year in which this photo was taken is unknown, some of the later photos that were taken of Fr. Kapaun during his time as an associate pastor of Pilsen’s St. John Nepomucene parish show him playing baseball with the students. Fr. Kapaun also was known to buy the children baseball and soccer equipment. (Catholic Diocese of Wichita)

Carter says he hopes “venerable” proves a transitional designation amid a speedy ascension, but notes that speedy is a relative term in Vatican contexts. “Fr. Kapaun has been busy at work for many years now,” Carter said. “We will talk with our postulator to see which of the potential miracle cases he thinks may give us the best chance of success in Rome, but it is really hard to put a timetable on any of it. The dicastery is busy working on about 1,600 other open causes for sainthood, but we don’t know the Holy Spirit’s timeline. I hope it won’t take as long as it did to get up to ‘venerable.’”

Overcoming Zemblanity

According to Carter, Fr. Kapaun received the “Servant of God” designation in 1993 when the Archdiocese of the Military Services opened the cause. The Diocese of Wichita took over his cause in 2008, with Fr. Hotze and a group of volunteers collecting information on his life. Carter came on board in his current role about a decade ago. 

“I am joyful at this news, especially because I see how much good Fr. Kapaun has already been doing,” he said. “Pope Francis says the saints are the most attractive face of the Church. They are the ones that teach us how to live the gospel as they inspire and intercede for us. Now Fr. Kapaun can be working even more.”

The circumstances by which Fr. Kapaun has been able to attain venerable status prompt Fr. Hotze to wonder aloud if Fr. Kapaun often overcame poor timing during his life on Earth. Although Fr. Hotze says he has uncovered no evidence of that during his study of Fr. Kapaun’s life, he cites numerous occurrences throughout the process that point to a strange sort of zemblanity – the opposite of serendipity.

Instead of one long and easy downhill road, Fr. Hotze reflects, the process has had to persist despite numerous detours.

“I have noticed – and so have other people that have worked on the case or been associated with it – that it is obvious this is being done in God’s time,” he said. “I don’t know if Fr. Kapaun had a terrible sense of timing when he was alive, but if you look at his cause for sainthood, there has been bad timing all along.”

Fr. Hotze cites a 2003 meeting he had scheduled with the Diocese of Wichita’s then-bishop, Thomas Olmstead, before the diocese took up Fr. Kapaun’s cause. Shortly before that meeting, it was announced that Bishop Olmstead was to become the bishop of Phoenix. “We met two days after that announcement and I told him, yes, I thought we should do it, but since he had been named bishop of another diocese, we were at a standstill,” Fr. Hotze said.

Bishop Michael Jackels became Wichita’s Bishop in spring 2005, and Fr. Hotze met with him during his initial months in the post. Bishop Jackels concurred that the diocese should pursue Fr. Kapaun’s beautification and canonization and Fr. Hotze and his team gathered and submitted evidence to the Dicastery for Saints in Rome, which set its Historical Committee to work on evaluating it. After that committee completed its evaluation, the next hurdle to clear was with the discastery’s theological committee.

“The day before the Theological Committee was scheduled to vote on Fr. Kapaun, Rome shut down because of Covid,” Fr. Hotze said. “Everything was put on hold on again for more than a year.”

Another hurdle manifested when the dicastery asked that Fr. Kapaun’s case be re-formulated to emphasize the new criterion Pope Francis introduced in 2017, “the offer of life” standard, which the Catholic News Agency describes as the experience of a premature death due to the offering, or sacrificing, of one’s life out of Christian charity.

“We had done our work focused on proving that he lived a life of sanctity and heroic virtue,” Fr. Hotze said. “We were asked to redo it according to the ‘offer of life,’ and so we did.”

He says he and Carter received a tip early last month that a decision from the pope on the cause appeared to be forthcoming, but when Pope Francis was admitted to the hospital for a case of bronchitis, and then pneumonia, in mid-February, it appeared bad timing might again slow Fr. Kapaun’s cause. 

“We now know the Holy Father was working in the hospital, for which we are very grateful,” Carter said. “It is just incredible that he took the time to do this.”

In the wee hours of Feb. 25, before news of Fr. Kapaun’s elevation had begun to spread in the United States, Carter says he stopped in Wichita’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and paid a visit to the new venerable’s remains. 

“The cathedral was so quiet,” he said. “I spent some time some time kneeling in silent rejoicing.”

Chaplain Kapaun shows off the remains of his pipe somewhere in Korea in October 1950. The rest of the pipe broke off as enemy fire forced him jump into a ditch. (Col. Raymond Skeehan)