PILSEN, Kansas – As an Army chaplain, Father Emil Kapaun didn’t carry a gun.
But President Barack Obama, while awarding him a posthumous Medal of Honor for his bravery in the Korean War, said the Catholic priest from Kansas wielded the mightiest weapon of all.
“A love for his brothers so pure,” Obama said during the 2013 ceremony, “that he was willing to die so that they might live.”
Kapaun dragged injured soldiers to safety during the Battle of Unsan. And, as enemy forces closed in, he allowed himself to be captured so that he could continue to care for his men. He prayed not only for his fellow prisoners of war, but also for the guards who held them captive.
In February, Pope Francis named Father Emil Kapaun “venerable,” bringing him one step closer to sainthood.
Kapaun’s story starts a long way from the battlefield, in the small farm town of Pilsen.
On a recent Friday at the Chaplain Kapaun Museum, tour guide Melissa Stuchlik flipped through a guest book filled with names of visitors — many from Kansas, but also Texas, California and beyond.
She says the museum draws a couple hundred visitors and Catholic pilgrims each month.
“There’s something special about driving away from the commotion of the city,” Stuchlik said. “It’s focusing.”
She took visitors through the rectory where Kapaun lived as a young priest. Next door, St. John Nepomucene Church houses two items that would be considered second-class relics if — or as Stuchlik says, when — Kapaun becomes a saint. Relics are objects venerated due to their connection with a saint, from their physical remains to personal artifacts.
Stuchlik points out the crucifix Kapaun carried as an altar server at the church and baptismal font in which he was baptized.
“We've had kids (from) as far as South Korea come to be baptized in our baptismal font,” she said.
“We know that this is the handle that Father would have touched a lot.”
She encouraged visitors to touch their own rosaries and crosses to its handle — making them into third-class relics.
Visitor numbers have picked up here since Kapaun was named venerable. But it’s nothing compared to what could happen in the years to come. The relics of saints can draw tens of thousands of pilgrims to holy places each year.
“Pilsen would probably get bigger,” Stuchlik said. “I think it would be a lot of bed and breakfasts popping up all over the place. We joke about the McDonald’s and the Hyatt.”
She says there’s a lot for Pilsen to gain — and maybe lose.
“Because right now, if you sat outside on our front porch, you would hear the quiet and the peacefulness. And we'd want to keep some of that.”
“But,” she added, “there will always be a place in Pilsen for Father.”
Shrines for those venerated by the church are often constructed after they’re beatified by the Vatican, the next step toward canonization. It’s not clear yet where Kapaun’s would be located.
His body has rested in the Wichita cathedral since it was identified four years ago after decades in a military cemetery.
Two hours south, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City wrestled with a similar question after the Vatican beatified Oklahoma martyr and priest Stanley Rother in 2017.
The Shrine’s executive director, Miguel Mireles, says it’s unlikely Rother’s small Oklahoma hometown of Okarche could have supported the quarter million people who visited the shrine in 2024, its first full year of operation.
“Part of the deal with building a shrine is that you have pilgrims coming on pilgrimage from all over, and you have to have an amenities for them,” he said. “They need a place to stay, they need a place to eat.
“Now, there’s more folks that are looking at investing in those types of businesses around us because there’s more demand.”
Mireles says the shrine brought a new, large-capacity church to Oklahoma City’s heavily Hispanic south side, which was struggling with overcrowding in its existing churches. And it served as a new anchor to the city’s growing Catholic community.
“It’s an exciting time to see the church alive, here in our home,” he said.
For Kapaun, sainthood could be decades away. The Vatican will investigate potential miracles attributed to Kapaun’s intercession from heaven. Catholics believe saints can bring prayers to God on their behalf. One is needed for beatification, and a second for canonization as a saint.
“Most of the time, these are medical miracles,” said Scott Carter, the coordinator for Kapaun’s Cause for Sainthood. “Because we're able to look for evidence of an actual problem, to show that there’s a change that happens and that change can’t be explained through medical intervention.”
Carter says saints and stories of their miracles perform two functions in the church. They serve as examples for Catholics on how to live the gospel in today's age. And they offer solace during times of hardship.
“It reminds us,” he said, “that God has not left us alone.”
Kapaun’s nephew, Ray, said he thinks the discovery of his uncle’s body four years ago came at exactly the right moment.
“We just seem to be more and more divided,” he said. “And the one thing he did in that camp was pulling all the men together — everyone fighting for each other. It was about unification.”
He hopes that message of brotherly love continues to spread along with his uncle’s story.
“More than any other time, at least in my life, people need to be more loving and less judging and less hateful,” he said. “I really do believe this is why Father was found now.”
