Month: March 2021

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Medal of Honor chaplain Fr Emil Kapaun’s body identified, as sainthood inquiry continues

March 5, 2021 CNA Daily News 0

Denver Newsroom, Mar 5, 2021 / 05:27 pm (CNA).- Department of Defense investigators have identified the remains of U.S. Army chaplain and Servant of God Fr. Emil Kapaun among the unknown Korean War soldiers buried in a Hawaiian cemetery, much to the surprise and joy of the priest’s relatives and devotees in his home state of Kansas.
 
“I just hope everybody is as elated as we are. It’s awesome to know that Fr. Kapaun will be coming home after 70 years,” Fr. John Hotze of the Diocese of Wichita told CNA March 5. 
 
Ray Kapaun, the priest’s nephew, reflected on the news.
 
“There’s no words that can explain what the feelings are right now,” he said, according to KWCH News.
 
“I know there’s been a lot of miracles that have been attributed to him, or are in the investigation of being attributed to him, but I think everyone sees this as a miracle,” Ray said. “Because this is so unexpected. I mean, my family, we never thought we’d see this in our lifetime.”
 
The priest had been a chaplain during the Second World War and became known for his service in the Korean War with the U.S. Army’s Eighth Cavalry regiment. After he was taken prisoner, he served and ministered to other soldiers in a prison camp, where he died May 23, 1951.
 
The U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has determined that the priest’s remains were among unidentified soldiers buried at the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, the Wichita diocese said March 4. Many soldiers’ remains had been moved there from North Korea in the 1950s and again in the 1990s.
 
Bishop Carl Kemme of Wichita welcomed the discovery.
 
“It was a joyful and exciting surprise for the Diocese of Wichita that Fr. Kapaun’s mortal remains were recovered after so many years and we continue to look forward to his process of canonization in the future,” said the bishop.
 
Kapaun’s surviving family is helping to plan the transport of his remains and his final resting place.
 
Father Hotze, who serves as the episcopal delegate for Kapaun’s beatification cause, said the news of the identification of the priest’s remains was “easily one of the last things I expected.”
 
“We’ve always hoped that his remains would be found. It is something that has been on the back burner for everybody for so long. It is great news,” he said.

He reported that the chaplain’s cause for Catholic sainthood is in “a waiting phase” due to delays related to the coronavirus pandemic.
 
In 1993, Kapaun was named a “Servant of God,” the first step on the way to being declared a saint. To be declared “venerable” is the second step in the canonization process. A key meeting regarding his case had been scheduled at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in March 2020, but that meeting was postponed due to the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in Italy.
 
Hotze had high praise for the army chaplain, describing him as “an ordinary person who was able to do extraordinary things in service to his fellow men and women and ultimately that meant in service to God.”
 
“And that’s how he gave his life,” he said. “He truly followed the example of Christ. You can see Christ’s life, passion and death all rolled up into Fr. Kapaun.”
 
Kapaun was born in Pilsen, Kansas in 1916. He came of age during the Great Depression. He was ordained a priest in 1940 and began ministry as a parish priest in his hometown.
 
During World War II Kapaun would offer the sacraments at the nearby Harrington Army Air Field until he became a full-time army chaplain in 1944. He was stationed in India and Burma for the duration of the war. There, he ministered to soldiers and served his unit with a selfless attitude.
 
He also gained a reputation for courage. After Kapaun’s jeep had been damaged, he would often ride his bicycle to meet soldiers even at the front lines. He would follow the sound of gunshots to find them.
 
After World War II ended, Kapaun studied history and education at the Catholic University of America. He returned home for a brief time as pastor of his boyhood parish and served at several other parishes. In 1948, the United States issued a call for military chaplains to return to service. Kapaun responded. He was then sent to Texas, Washington, and Japan before deployment to Korea.
 
During the Battle of Unsan in November 1950, Kapaun worked tirelessly to comfort the suffering and retrieve the wounded from the battlefield. One of the soldiers he retrieved was a wounded Chinese soldier, who helped him negotiate a surrender after he was surrounded by enemy troops. Kapaun was taken captive as a prisoner of war.
 
Even then, he helped others. Kapaun carried a wounded American prisoner who could not walk some 30 miles to a prison camp, though the soldier weighed 20 pounds more than the priest. The man could have been killed by enemy soldiers if he could not keep up with the march.
 
The priest was taken to prison camp number five in Pyoktong, a bombed-out village that served as a detainment center. The soldiers at the camp were severely mistreated and suffered from malnourishment, dysentery, and a lack of warm clothing to counter an extremely cold winter. Kapaun would do all he could for the soldiers. He would wash their soiled clothes, retrieve fresh water, and attend to their wounds.
 
The priest helped his fellow prisoners solve problems and keep up morale. He would stay up at night to write letters home on behalf of wounded soldiers. Many returned prisoners of war said his efforts helped them to survive in a harsh winter. For those who did not survive, the priest helped to bury their corpses.
 
Fr. Kapaun would celebrate the sacraments for his fellow prisoners, hear their confessions, and say Mass. On Easter Sunday 1951, about two months before his death, he held a sunrise service for prisoners.
 
When he developed pneumonia and a blood clot in his leg, the chaplain was denied medical treatment, which led to his death.
 
For his bravery at Unsan, Kapaun was posthumously bestowed the Congressional Medal of Honor in a 2013 ceremony under President Barack Obama. The medal is the United States’ highest military award for bravery.
 
While the priest’s body was believed to have been buried in a mass grave on the Yalu River near the North Korea-China border, this was not the case. Instead, his remains had been returned to the U.S. in the 1950s along with hundreds of other unidentified soldiers, Hotze told CNA. He believes inquiry into his possible canonization led to information that Hotze helped lead to the identification of the chaplain’s remains.
 
“He was buried elsewhere in the prison camp,” said Hotze. “His remains were actually returned to the U.S. right after the Korean War, around 1954.”
 
A set of remains had initially been mislabeled as Fr. Kapaun’s, but investigators determined they instead belonged to a younger man in his late teens or early 20s, rather than to a 35-year-old priest. Further identification was difficult, in part to a lack of technology.
 
“He was interred at the national cemetery, as were many others, as an unknown soldier,” Hotze said. “Fortunately, the Department of Defense still actively tries to identify the remains of these unknown soldiers.”
 
Those involved in Kapaun’s canonization cause were told it could be a matter of time to identify his remains if they were indeed at the cemetery.
 
“And that’s exactly what happened,” said Hotze. “We’re thrilled.”
 
Every June pilgrims march from Wichita to Kapaun’s hometown of Pilsen. They make the 60-mile walk in commemoration of the priest and his march to the prison camps.
 
“People are inspired by what he was able to do,” Hotze said. “He was born shortly before the depression. He grew up during the depression as a poor Kansas farmer. The family had nothing. And he was able to make great things happen with nothing.”
 
“He used what he had, and put it in service to God and in service to others. I think he’s a perfect example for each and every one of us who strives to be a saint,” he said. “We can look at his example and realize even if we are poor, even if we are destitute, even if we have nothing in our own lives, we can still be a saintly person.”
 
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, who had introduced legislation to award Kapaun the Medal of Honor, also commented on the identification of the priest’s remains.
 
“I am glad that his family has finally been granted closure after Father Kapaun’s selfless service to our nation,” said Moran, according to the Wichita Eagle newspaper.


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News Briefs

Actors say they have not been paid for their work on ‘Roe v. Wade’ film

March 5, 2021 CNA Daily News 1

Denver Newsroom, Mar 5, 2021 / 04:28 pm (CNA).- Several actors who worked on the film “Roe v. Wade” claim they are still waiting to be paid for their work on the movie, despite shooting their scenes over two years ago.

The film’s co-director and co-producer told CNA that the payment issue is resolved on their end, and they are waiting for the actors union to pay the actors using a large deposit the filmmakers placed with the union.

“Roe v. Wade,” a film about the landmark 1973 US Supreme Court decision on abortion, premiered last weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Susan LaBrecque, a Mississippi-based actor with a small speaking role in the movie, told CNA that she has yet to be paid for her work, despite her scenes being filmed over two days in New Orleans during July 2018.

Members of the actors union, SAG-AFTRA, normally can expect their payment to arrive within 30-45 days of filming, LaBrecque said.

Because the current payments are delayed, there will be late fees applied by the union, she noted. She said she knows of several other actors in the film— all with similarly small roles— who have not gotten their paychecks.

She said to her, it feels wrong that the film premiered before everyone involved was compensated for the work they put into it. 

“It feels wrong to tell [such] a moral story in a way, and have something in the background that’s not morally correct,” LaBrecque told CNA.

Cathy Allyn, co-director and producer of the movie, told CNA that they had placed a $200,000 deposit with SAG to cover any missed payments or other expenses, which is common practice in the film industry.

The missing payments were not caught until the filmmakers completed post-production accounting, at which point it was too late for them to hire a payroll company, Allyn asserted.

Allyn said she signed paperwork “a few weeks ago” to allow SAG to release their deposit to a payroll company, which will pay the actors.

She said the payment issues were likely due to “incomplete paperwork,” that she had apologized to the actors profusely, and that she and her co-producer Nick Loeb have no intention of leaving cast members “hanging.”

She said the filmmakers went through the “appropriate legal avenues” with SAG, and that COVID-19 likely contributed to the delay in the payments.

SAG did not respond by press time Friday to CNA’s request for comment, but released a statement to Los Angeles Magazine on the matter March 3.

“We were finally able to secure a release on the producer’s deposit [from] February 10. We are processing the funds with a payroll company so we can get payments out to performers as quickly as possible,” the statement reads.

“This does not cover all of the claims and we hope that the producer will fulfill its obligations and fully pay all talent,” it concluded.

LaBrecque pushed back on Allyn’s assertion that the actors know what they are owed, stating that she does not have “any idea how much the fees are, or when they will be paid.”

Actors Sherri Eakin and Brent Phillip Henry confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that they, too, have yet to be compensated. They told THR that they have also not yet been given a payment schedule.

CNA encouraged other actors with the same problem to reach out voluntarily, but did not receive any additional reports by press time.

“Roe v. Wade” is set to be available in April on Amazon Prime and iTunes. Among its executive producers is Dr. Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece.

Loeb, a businessman-turned-filmmaker and actor, co-directed, co-produced, and starred in “Roe v. Wade.” He plays the part of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a prolific abortion doctor who later converted to Christianity and became pro-life.

In a Feb. 23 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Loeb said despite the film’s subject matter, it is not a “conservative,” “religious,” or even a “pro-life” film.

Loeb said not all the actors in the film are pro-life, but at least one of the actors— whom he declined to name— converted from pro-choice views to pro-life over the course of filmmaking.

“What we tried to do is really just lay out the facts of how Roe v. Wade came to be and how it was decided. People can take one view or another. I’ve had a lot of people who think it’s in the middle,” he commented to The Hollywood Reporter.

Still, Loeb himself is pro-life and the personal journey of Loeb’s character, Nathanson, is one of pro-life conversion.

“Why some folks may think it’s a conservative film or why it aligns with those views is because the protagonist actually converts. He starts off pro-choice and becomes pro-life through his journey. It’s a true story,” Loeb commented.

Nathanson personally performed an estimated 5,000 abortions and oversaw tens of thousands more, including one on his own pregnant girlfriend in the 1960s.

Nathanson was previously a strong proponent of legalized abortion, and has been accused of inflating statistics on illegal abortions in the U.S. In 1969, he helped to found the lobbying organization now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America.

He left the practice of abortion in the early 1970s, and became a Christian and a pro-life activist until his death in 2011.


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News Briefs

Tasmania poised to legalize euthanasia, assisted suicide

March 5, 2021 CNA Daily News 0

Hobart, Australia, Mar 5, 2021 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- The Australian island of Tasmania is expected to become the third Australian state to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia, after a bill passed the lower house of the state’s parliament Thursday night.

The law would apply to people over 18 with an advanced, incurable, irreversible condition expected to cause death within six months, and patients can opt out of the decision at any time, the Australian Associated Press reported.

In a 16-6 vote March 4, the bill was passed by the House of Assembly. The governing Liberal Party members were given a conscience vote on the bill. All nine members of the opposition Australian Labor Party voted for the bill, as did both members of the Greens, who are crossbenchers.

Tasmanian lawmakers debated the bill, known as “End of Life Choices,” extensively this week. The state’s legislature has in the past rejected bills to legalize assisted suicide, most recently in 2013.

The bill will require approval from the parliament’s upper house before it can become law.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia have been legal in Victoria since June 2019, and in December 2019 Western Australia passed a law allowing the practices, which is expected to take effect in mid-2021.

Australia is currently considering legalizing euthanasia nationwide.

One of the Tasmanian bill’s provisions states that medical practitioners who object to assisted suicide and euthanasia must provide the patient seeking it with the contact information for the state’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Commission. 

Anther provision would allow assisted suicide to be prescribed via telemedicine— a provision hotly debated in Tasmania’s parliament.

The Tasmanian branch of the Australian Medical Association told ABC News last year that they do not support the bill, or assisted suicide in general. “The bill as it stands is really physician-assisted suicide and we don’t support that … we don’t agree that a doctor should ever do any action with a primary purpose of ending a person’s life,” AMA Tasmania President Helen McArdle told the ABC.

Live and Die Well, a Tasmanian group that advocates for palliative care rather than assisted suicide, has argued against the bill on the grounds that it does not provide enough safeguards for the vulnerable.

New South Wales rejected such a bill in 2017, as did the national parliament in 2016.

The Northern Territory legalized assisted suicide in 1995, but the Australian parliament overturned the law two years later.

Catholic bishops in Australia have repeatedly written in support of palliative care as an alternative to assisted suicide and euthaniasia.

The state of Victoria reported more than ten times the anticipated number of deaths from assisted suicide and euthanasia in its first legal year.

Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board reported 124 deaths by assisted suicide and euthanasia since June 19, 2019, when the legalization of the precedure took effect, The Catholic Weekly reported. There were a total of 231 permits issued for the procedure that year. The state’s premier had publicly predicted only “a dozen” deaths by assisted suicide in the first year.

Last month, an Australian university found that the country has less than half the number of palliative care physicians needed to care for terminally-ill patients.

A study published by Australian Catholic University’s PM Glynn Institute revealed that the country only has 0.9 palliative care doctors per every 100,000 people. According to the ACU, health industry standards state there should be at least two doctors for this population.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s September 2020 letter Samaritanus bonus reaffirmed the Church’s perennial teaching on the sinfulness of euthanasia and assisted suicide, and recalled the obligation of Catholics to accompany the sick and dying through prayer, physical presence, and the sacraments.

Samaritanus bonus also addressed the pastoral care of Catholics who request euthanasia or assisted suicide, explaining that a priest and others should avoid any active or passive gesture which might signal approval for the action, including remaining until the act is performed.


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News Briefs

Papal Mass in Erbil ‘nothing short of a miracle’, organizer says

March 5, 2021 CNA Daily News 0

Erbil, Iraq, Mar 5, 2021 / 11:19 am (CNA).- When Vida Hanna was told by the Archbishop Bashar Warda of the Chaldean Archeparchy of Erbil that Pope Francis was coming to Iraq, she thought to herself it was just another rumor.

Growing up in the Chaldean Catholic community in Erbil, Hanna, 27, was a little girl when there were rumors that St. John Paul II was planning to come to Iraq for the Jubilee 2000.

“But once I saw the official announcement from the Vatican, I knew this time it was for real,” she told CNA from her office at the Catholic University in Erbil.

Hanna, who graduated in communications at UC San Diego, is the director of public and international relations at the Catholic university, and Archbishop Warda appointed her coordinator of the Mass Pope Francis will celebrate March 7 at Erbil’s Franso Hariri Stadium.

“COVID has devastated the local economy, so organizing an event of this magnitude, even for the local Kurdish autonomous authorities, was financially impossible,” Hanna said. But according to her, the Knights of Columbus stepped in on their own initiative. “With their usual generosity and discretion, they made this dream possible for the whole community,” she added.

“Calling this event historical is almost an understatement for all minorities, especially Christian, after centuries of massacre, persecutions, and forced displacement.”

Once the funds were secured, Hanna convoked volunteers. They got far more than they expected to, because “all the Christian kids know that this is a once in a life opportunity.”

She then put the Catholic university IT managers to work on software that would guarantee high standards of identity recognition.

“This took quite an effort, because, as you can understand, the security standards have to be very high: we need to double check documents, correct name spellings, make sure they match IDs, and so forth,” she told CNA.  

The volunteers were trained at the Catholic university, gathered information from Christians in a 50 mile radius from Erbil, and set up 30 computers at the campus. “The sign-in for the 10,000 available seats lasted two weeks, while simultaneously, a group of volunteers with church and government experts scouted the stadium, established perimeters, security areas, and contingency plans,” Hanna says. 

She told CNA that with all this details taken care of, “the next challenge was transportation.” “Keep in mind, never before in Erbil, 10,000 people have been simultaneously transported to a single place in an orderly fashion. But we are now very confident that everything is in place and will work fine.” 

Hanna is especially happy that the Mass is involving so many young people. Beside the 250 young volunteers, there are another 100 youth in the chorus that will accompany the Mass.

“All of the local young Christians are in awe that this is happening to them and their generation… and it is so much needed! Only the Holy Father can bring the sense of security, the inner peace, the hope for a society that accepts religious diversity,” she said.

During the Mass, local Muslim authorities will attend, and there will be a place reserved for other minorities such as the Yazidis. The celebration will include passages in Aramaic, Kurdish, Arabic, English, and Italian. “I will be doing one of the readings in Aramaic, the language of Jesus… so I am a bit nervous,” Hanna joked.

“But the important thing is that the Mass will be not only the celebration of Jesus’ sacrifice, but also a strong message to our young Christians: you can stay, you don’t need to leave, you can build a future here, in the land where we Christians have been for almost two millennia.”  


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The Dispatch

Can You Handle Silence?

March 5, 2021 Sean Fitzpatrick 2

I had long read about martyrdom in the lives of the saints—how the souls of the martyrs had gone home to Heaven, how they had been filled with glory in Paradise, how the angels had […]