Military chaplain being considered for medal of honor and sainthood

Military chaplain being considered for medal of honor and sainthood

The following excerpt is from RomeReports.com:

From the wheat fields of Kansas to a prisoner of war during the Korean Conflict in 1951, this is the story of military chaplain Father Emil Kapaun.

He is currently being considered to receive the Medal of Honor as well as a being candidate for sainthood by the Catholic Church.

He is the subject of a documentary called “The Miracle of Father Kapaun”. It follows the life of this Catholic martyr, with interviews from many of the men who served alongside the chaplain in the war. They tell how he refused to leave injured soldiers which led to his capture and eventual death in a prison camp.

Through many personal letters written to his family, one is given an idea of what it was like to serve as a clergyman on the battlefield. In the last letter he is believed to ever have written he notes that “we do have a few laughs in spite of the evils of war”.

The Vatican is now looking at possibly beatifying Kapaun, while the Pentagon may award him the country's highest military honor: the medal of honor.

Prayers to Father Emil Kapaun are Answered with a Miracle

As girl lay near death, family prayed to Kapaun - Wichita Eagle

The following excerpt is from Wichita Eagle - Kansas.com:

In October 2006, 12-year-old Avery Gerleman scored a goal in a soccer game.

She did not celebrate. She walked to the sidelines and threw up a gob of bright red blood into the grass.

She told her coach, "I need to get back in there."

The coach sat her down. After that, bad went to worse.

Doctors in Wichita put Avery in a drug-induced coma and pushed a breathing tube down her throat. Avery's lungs filled with blood. Her kidneys shut down.

There was so much air and fluid leaking into her chest that her heart nearly stopped beating from the pressure.

Doctors told Melissa and Shawn Gerleman that their daughter was going to die. Melissa cried.

She and Shawn began to pray; to Jesus and to a priest from Kansas who had been dead for 55 years.

Doctors say what happened next is the most mysterious medical recovery they have ever seen.

Avery's two primary physicians are scientists, with intellectual allegiances rooted firmly in facts and skeptical reasoning. And they are Protestants, with none of the Gerleman family's training in the Catholic traditions of sainthood, guardian angels and miracles.

But the doctors have told the Vatican that Avery's recovery is so unusual that there is no other explanation for what happened: They say it's a miracle.

Avery's parents say Father Emil Kapaun heard the prayers, and tipped the scales in heaven.

Read more: As girl lay near death, family prayed to Kapaun

Investigator for Vatican Finds Evidence of Miracle in Chase Kear's Survival

Investigator for Vatican finds enough to continue - Featured Story - Wichita Eagle

(Chase Kear's remarkabe recovery is being attributed to intercessory prayer made to Father Emil Kapaun. Father Kapaun is being considered for sainthood by the Vatican.)

The following excerpt is by Roy Wenzl of the Wichita Eagle:

The Vatican found enough evidence of a miracle in the survival of Chase Kear of Colwich that it intends to keep studying his survival, with an eye toward declaring it an official miracle, church officials say.

Declaring it a miracle would help determine whether Father Emil Kapaun of Pilsen will be canonized as a saint of the Catholic Church.

Andrea Ambrosi, a lawyer and investigator for the Vatican, visited family members and doctors for two Wichita-area families on Friday who believe the survival of their children during nearly lethal medical crises recently should qualify as miracles.

One of them involved Chase Kear, a 20-year-old Colwich athlete severely injured in October.

The Rev. John Hotze, judicial vicar for the Wichita diocese, is not allowed to say who or what families are being investigated for miracles. But he said there was one other "alleged miracle" in the Wichita area that Ambrosi studied during his time here.

With both families, Hotze said, Ambrosi met with the doctors involved and studied medical reports and X-rays.

"Afterward, the Vatican investigator said that in years of investigating miracles, he had never seen doctors who made such a compelling case for miracles occurring," Hotze said.

If the miracle is proven, it will significantly advance the chances that the church will declare Kapaun a saint, decades after he died a hero in a North Korean prison camp in 1951. The church requires miracles to elevate a person to sainthood.

Hotze has investigated Kapaun's proposed sainthood for eight years, which is only a fraction of the time the church has been considering whether to elevate Kapaun to sainthood.

American soldiers came out of prisoner-of-war camps in 1953 with incredible stories about Kapaun's heroism and faith. They said that in the fierce winter of 1950 and 1951, when 1,200 out of 3,000 American prisoners starved to death or died of illness in Camp 5 along the Yalu River, Kapaun kept hundreds of survivors alive by stealing food and by force of will.

Kapaun was assigned to the U.S. Army's Eighth Cavalry regiment, which was surrounded and overrun by the Chinese army in North Korea in October and November 1950. He stayed behind with the wounded when the Army retreated. He allowed his own capture, then risked death by preventing Chinese executions of wounded Americans too injured to walk.

To read complete story, please visit the following link: Chase Kear Miracle

Vatican to Investigate Chase Kear Miracle

Is it a miracle that Colwich man survived? Religion Wichita Eagle

Video By Travis Heying

The following excerpt is from a video interview of family members regarding Chase Kear's recovery:

Family and friends of Chase Kear called his recovery from a severe head injury a miracle last year. During his hospitalization, several people prayed to Fr. Emil Kapaun, a Kansas priest who died in a Korean P.O.W. camp. Kapaun is a candidate for Sainthood and now the Vatican is sending a representative to Kansas to investigate Chase's story. To view the inspirational story, please visit the following link: Chase Kear Miracle