Two Soldiers Advance to Sainthood

The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints issued a decree today recognizing the “offering of life” of two men who served in the military of their respective nations, the American Army chaplain Fr Emil Kapaun (1916-51), and an Italian carabiniere named Salvo D’Acquisto (1920-43. The carabinieri are a national police force similar to the FBI, but are part of the Italian army.) The term “offering of life” is used in reference to Saints who did not die for the Faith in the strict sense, that is, they were not killed out of hatred of the Faith, nor in defense of it, but who met their deaths heroically and as an act of Christian charity. (The most famous example in our era would certainly be St Maximilian Kolbe.) They should now be formally known with the title “Venerable”. 

Left: The Venerable Fr Emil Kapaun, chaplain of the United States Army and captain, awarded the Medal of Honor and the Bronze Star. Photograph taken in 1950, shortly before his departure for Korea.

Right: The Venerable Salvo D’Acquisto, Vice-brigadier of the Italian carabinieri; photographed ca. 1939, age 19.

Fr Kapaun was born in 1916 to a Kansas farming family of German-Bohemian descent, and entered seminary formation at Conception Abbey in St Louis, Missouri in 1930; he studied theology at Kenrick Seminary, also in St Louis, and was ordained for his home diocese in 1940. After being appointed by his bishop as an assistant chaplain at a local Army base during World War II, he felt called to enter the military chaplaincy full-time, and was granted permission to do so in July of 1944. He finished his training in March of the following year, and was sent to the Asian theater, serving in Burma and India as the war was coming to an end. In recognition of his service, he was promoted to captain in January 1946.

In early 1950, he was sent to serve with the occupying American forces in Japan, but when South Korea was attacked by the North in June of that year, his unit was one of the first to be shipped over in its defense. His service in the field of combat was exemplary, not only for his assiduous celebration of the Sacraments, but also for his assistance to the wounded, and recovery and burial of the dead. After barely more than two weeks on the battlefield, he earned a Bronze Star for rescuing a wounded soldier in the midst of heavy enemy fire. He was always particularly careful to write to the families of the fallen to let them know that their loved ones had died with the ministrations of a priest.

A famous photograph of Fr Kapaun celebrating Mass on the hood of his jeep, Oct. 7, 1950. 

In later September of 1950, the United Nations forces, led by those of the United States, launched a counter-offensive which within a little more than a month pushed the invading Communist forces back almost to the Chinese border. In early November, however, China invaded in defense of North Korea, and in the course of this new phase of the war, Fr Kapaun’s battalion was taken prisoner. They were held in a POW camp in Pyoktong, in the extreme north of enemy territory, in appalling conditions; it is reported that the prisoners died at the rate of more than twenty a day.

Despite his own sufferings, Fr Kapaun continued to serve the men with extraordinary heroism, giving them his own meager food, sneaking out of the camp to steal more food for them, washing those who were too weak to wash themselves, and visiting the men under cover of darkness, which was strictly forbidden, in order to pray with them and keep up their spirits. In May of 1951, he succumbed to pneumonia, aggravated by long-standing malnutrition. A few years after the 1953 Korean armistice, his remains were repatriated to the United States. He is buried in the cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita, Kansas.

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Chris Riggs, CC BY-SA 4.0

Salvo D’Acquisto was born in Naples in 1920, the eldest of eight children, and enrolled in the carabinieri as a volunteer in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II. After serving for two years in Libya, which was then an Italian colony, and being wounded in fighting with the English, he returned to Italy, and was sent to an officer training school in Florence. Upon graduating as a vice-brigadier, he was posted in late 1942 to a small rural town called Castello di Torre in Pietra, about 15 miles to the west of Rome.

In July of 1943, shortly after the Allies invaded Sicily, Benito Mussolini, who had ruled the country since 1922, was removed from power and arrested by order of the king, resulting in a complete collapse of Italian military forces abroad, and civil war at home. In the midst of the chaos, the region where D’Acquisto was stationed was occupied by the Germans. On the evening of September 22, two of their soldiers were killed, and two others wounded, by an accidental explosion while they were inspecting an abandoned munitions depot. The German military authorities, believing this to be an act of deliberate sabotage on the part of the locals, demanded that the carabinieri cooperate with their investigation.

At the time, there was in effect a standing order that such acts should be met with reprisals against the civilian population at a ratio of ten for every soldier killed. The next morning, Salvo attempted to persuade the Germans that the explosion was accidental, but his plea was rejected. Twenty-four residents of the area were arrested and brought to the nearby town of Palidoro; Salvo was seized at his station and brought there under armed guard. After insisting upon their innocence, the men were given shovels and forced to dig a mass grave for themselves.

When he realized that the Germans intended to make good on the threat and kill them all, Salvo stepped forward and proclaimed that he alone was responsible for what had happened. At this, the prisoners were set free, and D’Acquisto was shot by a firing squad. He was 22 years old. Even the German officers themselves recognized the nobility of his sacrifice of his own life to save the innocent, saying to some of the locals, “Your brigadier died a hero, unmoved in the face of death.” Initially interred in the area, he was removed after the war to a military cemetery near Naples, and in 1986, to a chapel of the basilica of St Clare in the city itself.

The monument on the site of his execution in Palidoro. 

His grave in the basilica of St Clare in Naples. (© José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro, CC BY-SA 4.0)

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”