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Earlier this year, Pope Francis named Father Emil Kapaun venerable. That decree brings the Catholic priest and Korean war hero from Kansas one step closer to canonization as a saint. That road is long, but it could mean big changes for his small hometown. Rose Conlon of member station KMUW has this story.
ROSE CONLON, BYLINE: Kapaun's story starts in the small Kansas farm town of Pilsen. It's population...
MELISSA STUCHLIK: Ooh, maybe 40-something. I don't know. Dogs and cats count? (laughter).
CONLON: That's Melissa Stuchlik, a tour guide at the Chaplain Kapaun Museum in town. She takes visitors through the rectory where Kapaun lived as a young priest, past photos from his time as an Army chaplain. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Kapaun a Medal of Honor for his bravery during the Korean War.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: An American soldier who didn't fire a gun but who wielded the mightiest weapon of all, a love for his brother so pure that he was willing to die so that they might live.
CONLON: Kapaun dragged injured soldiers to safety on the battlefield. And as enemy forces closed in, he allowed himself to be captured so 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. Kapaun died in a Korean prison camp in 1951 at age 35. Stuchlik tells the Pilsen tour that the church next door houses two items that would be considered second-class relics if, or as she says, when Kapaun becomes a saint.
STUCHLIK: One of them is the crucifix that Father carried as an altar server. And the other one would be the baptismal font that Father was baptized in. And we've had kids as far as South Korea come to be baptized in our baptismal font.
CONLON: Visitor numbers have picked up here since Kapaun was named venerable, but it's nothing compared to what could happen later. The relics of saints can draw tens of thousands of pilgrims to holy places each year. And that could mean big changes for Pilsen, which has no post office, gas station or stoplight.
STUCHLIK: Pilsen would probably get bigger. I would think there would be a lot of bed-and-breakfasts popping up all over the place. We joke about the McDonald's and the Hyatt.
CONLON: Stuchlik says there's a lot for Pilsen to gain and maybe lose.
STUCHLIK: 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.
CONLON: But sainthood and a busier Pilsen 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. Scott Carter is the coordinator for Kapaun's Cause for Sainthood. He says one confirmed miracle is needed for the next step to canonization, beatification.
SCOTT CARTER: We'll have to, you know, kind of shore up our paperwork. We'll kind of have to jump back in line over in Rome. So it could be as early as a handful of years. Maybe it's a decade. I'm hoping it's not longer than that (laughter).
CONLON: One potential miracle involves Chase Kear, a former college athlete who nearly died in a pole-vaulting accident 16 years ago. He was 14 feet in the air when he lost control.
CHASE KEAR: I went over the backside of the landing pad and hit my head on the track, and I fractured my skull from ear to ear across the front.
CONLON: Doctors told his mom, Paula, that they had to remove part of his skull.
PAULA KEAR: They told us, you know, that he has a better chance of dying on the table than living through the surgery.
CONLON: But Chase did live through the surgery. Then he started walking, then talking. He graduated college and got a job, and got married, had kids. Paula says he's defied every doctor's expectations.
P KEAR: They have all said they can't explain it, that it is a miracle.
CONLON: Through it all, his family and church community prayed. One prayer, in particular, was a constant.
PAUL AND PAULA KEAR: Father Kapaun, I ask your intercession that only these needs, which I mentioned now - the healing of Chase Kear - but that I, too, may follow for your example of service to God and my neighbor.
CONLON: For NPR News, I'm Rose Conlon, in Pilsen, Kansas. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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