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"In order to win the crown of heavenly glory, the saints were expected first to carry a heavy cross in life." -- Father Emil Kapaun Over the next six weeks, the POWs in the Pyoktong prison camp began a cloaked and daring effort to save Emil Kapaun’s life. On a rise above them stood the remains of a Buddhist monastery; the guards called it a hospital, but POWs called it "The Death House." The Chinese sometimes killed prisoners by isolating them there from food and help. The POWs knew that’s where Kapaun might end up. In April, weeks after his...

"No sincere prayer is ever wasted." -Father Emil Kapaun At sunrise on Easter Sunday, March 25, 1951, Father Emil Kapaun startled POWs by donning his purple priest’s stole and openly carrying a Catholic prayer missal, borrowed from Ralph Nardella. He had talked atheist guards into letting him hold an Easter service, a favor they soon regretted. No one there would ever forget this day. The most moving sight the POWs ever saw. At sunrise, 80 officers — bearded, dirty and covered with lice — followed Kapaun up a little rise, to the cold steps of a bombed-out church. They gathered...

“People whose ambitions are confined to the limits of earthly things would be confounded at the beatitude on meekness.” — Father Emil Kapaun By February 1951 the Allied prisoners at Pyoktong, North Korea, were dying so fast on ground frozen so solid that unburied bodies lay in stacks three to four feet high, 30 to 40 yards long. Men hoarded food or stole it from the weak, and left sick men to die in their own defecation. Many soldiers were in their teens and early 20s, not mature enough to deal with that level of suffering. Father Emil Kapaun never...

"Christ's works testified to what he was; our works will testify as to what we are." -Father Emil Kapaun -- Three weeks after their capture, after 75 miles of marching, the starving survivors of the 8th Cavalry and 19th Infantry straggled into a mud-hut village called Pyoktong, on the banks of the Yalu River, two miles from Manchuria. They’d barely set foot in the village when American bombers roared in overhead and firebombed it. Horrified villagers spat at the prisoners, threw rocks. Guards took them south again, 12 more miles. Men and discipline broke down in the snow and ice;...

"Men find it easy to follow one who has endeared himself to them." -Father Emil Kapaun Father Emil Kapaun was considered an unusual man even before the 8th Cavalry’s 3rd Battalion was overrun at Unsan. Many devout Christians believe, for example, that they must overtly preach Christianity, but Kapaun by all accounts never lectured, never forced it. What he did instead was scrounge food for soldiers, write letters to their families, pass his tobacco pipe around for a few puffs, and run through machine gun fire, rescuing wounded. If he brought up religion in foxholes, he asked permission first: “Would...

After he hit his head on the ground in a pole vaulting accident last year, they sawed off a third of his skull to relieve the pressure on his swelling brain. They told his family that all hope was lost. But Chase's family lives near Wichita, where a farm kid named Emil Kapaun was ordained a priest 69 years ago. The Kears prayed thousands of prayers to the soul of Father Kapaun, asking him to bend the ear of God. They chanted his name like a mantra. And Chase woke up. And he arose and walked. His baffled doctors said...

Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan - Capt. Matt Foley hasn't presided over any weddings or christenings since he arrived here in April - not much call for those services in a war zone. But the Army chaplain and Catholic priest who spent much of his childhood in Wauwatosa stays very busy ministering to nine companies in the 82nd Airborne Divisional Special Troops Battalion, delivering care packages, checking on soldiers' welfare, presiding over Catholic Masses as well as handling any calls for a priest. And like all military chaplains, he cares for all service members regardless of their religion. His job is very...

          Faith or Fear? For whatever does not originate and proceed from faith is sin [whatever is done without a conviction of its approval by God is sinful]. — Romans 14:23 Is it possible to allow someone to control and manipulate us, honestly saying we are doing so in faith? Of course not! We know this type of behavior is rooted in fear, not faith. Faith obeys God, but fear is easily intimidated and finds many excuses for disobedience. A person who is a perfectionist, a workaholic, or involved in sexual perversion is just as...

          BE KIND TO STRANGERS Do not forget or neglect or refuse to extend hospitality to strangers [in the brotherhood — being friendly, cordial, and gracious, sharing the comforts of your home and doing your part generously], for through it some have entertained angels without knowing it. — Hebrews 13:2 A clique is an exclusive group, one to which not everyone is welcome. Being "in" makes us feel important, but being "out" can be very painful. I find that even the church is full of cliques. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, you and...

Acting Bishop of Basrah, Imad Al Banna, holds a Catholic Mass at Contingency Operating Base Adder, Nov. 7. Banna also had lunch with troops and civilians and was given a Liberty Bell statuette by the 28th Combat Air Brigade, Pennsylvania National Guard. Photo by Sgt. Matthew Jones, 28th Combat Aviation Brigade. COB ADDER — The acting Bishop of Basrah held Catholic Mass here in honor of the service members and civilians working toward a safer, more secure Iraq, Nov. 7. Bishop Imad Al Banna, a Chaldean priest, spoke Aramaic, an ancient language spoken in Palestine 2,000 years ago and still...

          THE SECOND TEN COMMANDMENTS Most people are familiar with the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai as recorded in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:1-21. But have you heard of the second Ten Commandments? The second Ten Commandments are "10 suggestions" of a cardiologist, Steven R. Yarnall, MD, for giving one the edge on being the best you can be. Taking care of ourselves is most often just good, old-fashioned commonsense. But here are Yarnall's "10 Health Commandments" as I found them in a pamphlet put out by the Hope Heart Institute. Thou...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2009 – Readers of Mark Bowden’s “Black Hawk Down” can put the book aside when they’ve had enough of their mind’s reaction of the brutal 1993 battle of Mogadishu, Somalia. But Chaplain (Maj.) Jeff Struecker isn’t that lucky. The decorated Army Ranger was charged with leading the ground assault force on all the targets that the task force hit in Somalia. “I had been shot at and seen many dead warriors [before Mogadishu],” Struecker said. “I never experienced anything like the violence and the overwhelming sense of desperation like I experienced in Somalia. After losing one of...

FORT HOOD, Texas – Mourners were asked to pray for the man authorities say went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood, and an Army chaplain exhorted his congregation on Sunday to draw together even if the gunman's motives may never be fully known. "Lord, all those around us search for motive, search for meaning, search for something, someone to blame. That is so frustrating," Col. Frank Jackson told a group of about 120 people gathered at the post's chapel. "Today, we pause to hear from you. So Lord, as we pray together, we focus on things we know."

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 7, 2009) — American society may be less religious than it was a few generations ago, but its religious diversity has greatly increased. That change has dramatically impacted the Army, which must now offer religious services not only for Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants but also for a wide variety of different Christian denominations and minority faiths. That’s far different from what Lt. Col. John Bjarnason, Fort Leonard Wood’s family life chaplain, saw when he joined the Army in 1969. “We have a wide range of all kinds of different choices for our trainees to...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Nov. 7, 2009) — Shortly before Army personnel nationwide conducted a moment of silence for the 13 soldiers and others killed by an Army psychiatrist Friday afternoon at Fort Hood in Texas, an Army chaplain assigned to family life issues at Fort Leonard Wood explained how the Army tries to help soldiers and families. “Our military is grieving now this great loss at Fort Hood,” said Lt. Col. John Bjarnason. “We feel very sad for the families that have lost a dear one there.” Bjarnason, 64, entered the Army during the Vietnam era, returned to active...

          WHY DO WE STILL HAVE SCARS? One of the greatest truths we can know in life is that God is always able and willing to forgive us for our shortcomings. All we have to do is ask for His forgiveness. And if God is willing, then we too, should forgive ourselves. Yet one of the greatest ironies concerning forgiveness is that the painful memories the scars of our past remain with us. We may wonder, "What's the sense in receiving forgiveness if the scars from the painful memory remain?" Maybe the question should be,...

          GETTING UNDERWAY A young Ensign, who had just completed his first overseas deployment, was given the opportunity to "show his stuff" by getting his ship underway. As he yelled out commands with great confidence, sailors were running everywhere. In no time, the ship came out of the channel, headed for home. It was accomplished so well that he set a new record for getting a destroyer underway. He wasn't surprised when a seaman approached him with a message from his CO. . . he was surprised to find that it was a radio message....

All Army chaplains wear the same uniform, and...answer to the same calling: to provide comfort and to relieve the suffering of American soldiers. But one chaplain stands out from the crowd. Thomas Dyer is the first and only Buddhist chaplain in the history of the U.S. Army. Dyer will be deployed to the Middle East in December along with the 278th Armored Calvary Regiment. Although his faith is grounded in pacifism, the 43-year-old Dyer says war has become a necessary part of peace. "My teacher has concluded that without the military, without civil protection, the world would enter into a...

More than a year after he was forced to disown his Chicago pastor, President Obama has begun to attend services led by a Christian chaplain who views Islam as a violent faith. Mr Obama has been an irregular church attender since becoming President, but has expressed a fondness for Carey Cash, the navy chaplain at the Camp David presidential retreat who has been criticised for proselytising in the military and his mistrust of Islam. The White House insists that the Rev Cash, the great-nephew of the singer Johnny Cash, has not become Mr Obama’s new pastor, but it appears that...

Corporal Cristo Ancor Cabello Santana Madrid, Spain, Oct 14, 2009 / 04:35 pm (CNA).- Corporal Cristo Ancor Cabello Santana, the lastest Spanish soldier to die in Afghanistan, fulfilled his wish to be baptized before dying. Cabello had asked the chaplain at the Herat Base to baptize him and was planning on receiving the sacrament last weekend before being wounded in a Taliban attack. The chaplain wanted to use a baptismal shell being sent from Madrid to administer the sacrament, but Cabello told him he already had one from when he made a pilgrimage to Santiago in Spain. The chaplain used...