Cardinal Gregory speaks at immigration reform rally

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Vatican City, Jul 13, 2022 / 04:35 am (CNA).
The Vatican’s “trial of the century”, scheduled to continue in September, has so far offered plenty of drama and raised numerous unanswered questions. One of the most sensitive,… […]

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 26, 2020 / 09:45 am (CNA).- Faith and social issues took center stage on night two of the Republican National Convention, as speakers said the Trump administration had worked to advance the cause of religious freedom, promoting pro-life causes, and criminal justice reform.

Among the speakers was pro-life activist and former Planned Parenthood employee Abby Johnson who condemned her former employer’s racist heritage. She noted that 80% of Planned Parenthood’s abortion facilities are located near minority neighborhoods, and that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a eugenicist. 

Trump, she said “has done more for the unborn than any other president” and is “the most pro-life president we’ve ever had. 

Johnson graphically described a second-trimester abortion she says she witnessed while working for Planned Parenthood, saying that she saw “an unborn baby fighting back, desperate to move away from the suction … The last thing I saw was a spine twirling around in the mother’s womb before succumbing to the force of the suction.”

Seeing that abortion, she said, caused her to quit her job and leave the abortion industry. 

Most Americans, said Johnson, do not understand the “barbarity” of abortion.

“They don’t know about the ‘products of conception’ room in abortion clinics, where infant corpses are pieced back together to ensure nothing remains in the mother’s wombs; or that we joked and called it the ‘pieces of children’ room,” she said. 

“See, for me, abortion is real. I know what it sounds like. I know what abortion smells like. Did you know abortion even had a smell?” Johnson herself had two abortions prior to her pro-life conversion. 

In her speech, Johnson referred to Biden and Harris as “two radical, anti-life activists.” The Democratic Party platform called, for the first time, for abortion to be codified in federal law, and repeated the 2016 platform’s call for a repeal of the Hyde Amendment forbidding taxpayer dollars for abortions. 

The Republican Party has not changed its the 2016 platform, which calls for abortion to be illegal, but did release a list of 50 bullet points outlining the priorities of a second term of the Trump presidency. Those points do not mention abortion policy, though Johnson emphasized that in her view, Trump’s second term will feature continued efforts on restricting legal protection for abortion. 

Cissie Graham Lynch, the granddaughter of evangelist Billy Graham, spoke Tuesday night on the importance of the free exercise of religion “in our schools, and in our jobs, and yes, even in the public square.” 

“Our founders did not envision a quiet, hidden faith: they fought to ensure that the voices of faith were always welcomed; not silenced, not bullied,” she said. Lynch said that during the Obama/Biden administration, “these freedoms were under attack.” 

Lynch cited the examples of the HHS contraceptive mandate, which she said was an attempt to “force religious organizations to pay for abortion-inducing drugs,” and efforts to force adoption agencies to violate their religious beliefs in who they worked with. 

“Democrats pressured schools to allow boys to compete in girls sports and use girls locker rooms,” she said, referring to transgender activists. “Those are the facts.” 

With the election of Donald Trump, she said, “people of faith suddenly had a fierce advocate in the White House,” noting that he appointed judges who “respect the First Amendment” and withdrew policies that violated conscience rights. 

“The Biden-Harris vision leaves no room for people of faith,” Lynch said. “Whether you’re a baker or florist or a football coach, they will force the choice between being obedient to God or to caesar–because the radical left’s God is government power.” 

One of the more emotional moments of the night was the story of Jon Ponder, a convicted bank robber. While in prison, Ponder turned his life around through a chaplaincy program. Upon release, Ponder founded a nonprofit organization Hope for Prisoners, and befriended the FBI agent who arrested him.

Hope for Prisoners works to assist prisoners with reentry into society, and provides leadership training, financial advice, professional development, and technology training. 

“My hope for America is that all people regardless of race, color, class or background will take advantage of the fact that we live in a nation of second chances,” said Ponder on Tuesday. Trump called his story “a beautiful testament to the power of redemption.”

At the end of the segment, Trump pardoned Ponder for his bank robbery conviction, which is a federal crime. Ponder had previously been granted clemency in Nevada on battery charges. 

Also featured on Tuesday night was Nick Sandmann, who, as a student at Covington Catholic High School, was the subject of a media firestorm after an out-of-context clip went viral showing him smiling at a Native American demonstrator in front of the Lincoln Memorial after the March for Life earlier this year. Sandmann spoke on the topics of cancel culture and the need for media accountability and honesty. 

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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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