Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska in St. Peter’s Square, a day before the canonization Mass of St. John Henry Newman, Oct. 12, 2019. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
CNA Staff, Aug 23, 2025 / 11:15 am (CNA).
Lincoln, Nebraska Bishop James Conley this week said a proposed federal immigrant detention facility in the state must allow Catholic ministers to provide sacramental and pastoral care.
The bishop made the announcement after Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen announced the repurposing of the state Work Ethic Camp in McCook to house immigrants in the country illegally.
The state website says the camp presently offers “an integrated program that combines evidence-based practices with treatment and educational opportunities” for prisoners. Pillen told local media this week that the facility “would be converted and provide capacity for 300 migrants,” according to the Nebraska Examiner.
In his own statement this week, Conley said the Diocese of Lincoln has been allowed to administer the sacraments and pastoral care to detainees at the camp “for decades.” The diocese has been allowed to say Mass there “on a weekly basis,” he said.
“It will be of utmost importance that any person detained in the federal immigration detention center in McCook can also access regular and ongoing pastoral care,” the bishop said. “This is fundamental to the dignity of every human person, as each of us is called to union with God.”
Conley further urged that the facility should not be used to detain immigrants who are only in the country illegally, but rather “those who have committed crimes that endanger public safety.”
“To do otherwise would undermine the facility’s moral legitimacy and erode public trust,” he argued.
Conley said he remains “committed to safeguarding human dignity which maintains public safety and respects our migrant brothers and sisters.”
The bishop’s letter comes a few weeks after Catholic leaders in Florida were allowed pastoral access to the state’s so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detainment facility in the Everglades.
Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski had previously expressed concern that Catholic ministers were not being allowed access to the facility, though the state ultimately allowed Mass to be celebrated there earlier this month.
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Ray Kapaun, the nephew of Servant of God Father Emil Kapaun, and his wife, Lee, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita, Kansas, on the day of Father Kapaun’s funeral. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Ray Kapaun
CNA Staff, Nov 11, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
As a new film about U.S. military chaplains was released in theaters on Nov. 8, the nephew of heroic priest and chaplain Servant of God Father Emil Kapaun spoke about his uncle’s virtue and sense of mission during the Korean War.
“Fighting Spirit: A Combat Chaplain’s Journey” tells the story of former Army chaplain Justin Roberts as he travels to the funeral of Kapaun. Along the way, Roberts is inspired by the lives of the 419 other U.S. military chaplains who have given their lives in service. The documentary explores the stories of several of these chaplains, including the beloved Catholic priest.
Kapaun was a priest of the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas. Ordained on June 9, 1940, he began training in the U.S. Army Chaplain School at Fort Devens four years after his ordination. In January 1950, he was sent to Japan as a chaplain in the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. In July 1950, he was then sent to Korea, where he brought the sacraments to troops, tended to the injured, and prayed with soldiers in the foxholes. At times he celebrated Mass on the battlefield using the hood of a jeep as a makeshift altar.
Ray Kapaun receives the remains of his uncle, Father Emil Kapaun, and places them on the gurney to transport him out of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in Hawaii. Credit: Photo courtesy of Ray Kapaun
During the Battle of Unsan, Kapaun was captured along with other soldiers and taken to a Chinese-run prison camp in Pyoktong, North Korea. While there, he regularly stole food for his fellow prisoners and tended to their spiritual needs despite a prohibition on prayer.
After being taken to what prisoners called the “death house,” Kapaun died on May 23, 1951, after months of malnutrition and pneumonia.
His cause for sainthood is being promoted by the Diocese of Wichita and is currently being reviewed by the theological committee for the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in Rome.
A nephew of the heroic priest, Ray Kapaun, told CNA that growing up he heard stories about his uncle from his grandmother. He recalled hearing about his uncle’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and how his vocation to the priesthood was clear from a young age: He would stack cardboard boxes on top of one another, throw a towel over them, and pretend to say Mass at his makeshift altar.
“He was the most unselfish person I think I’ve ever heard of,” Ray Kapaun said. “He just always put everybody else ahead of his own needs.”
One story that Ray remembers was told to him by his father. Shortly before Father Kapaun was about to head out to the Korean War, he went to visit his family in his hometown of Pilsen, Kansas. He pulled Ray’s father aside and told him: “I don’t think I’m going to be coming back from this one.”
“Dad was like, ‘No, don’t talk like that. You can’t,’” Ray recalled. “And he said, ‘I’m not telling you that to make you sad or feel sorry for me,’ he said, ‘I just have that feeling that I’m not coming back from this one.’”
Ray believes it was this feeling that allowed his uncle to “do the things he did to help the guys in the prison camp, to run out across the battlefield when bombs were exploding — he knew that is exactly where he needed to be and he did it with compassion, but he didn’t do it with fear. He did it with a knowing that God was going to take care of him and that was exactly where he needed to be.”
In March 2021, after 70 years, the skeletal remains of Father Kapaun were identified among 866 other unknown Korean soldiers buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. These remains were handed to American forces in 1954 by North Korea.
Ray said receiving the call that his uncle’s remains had been found was something he “never ever envisioned.” He called it truly “miraculous” that when Father Kapaun’s casket was opened for his body to be identified, “his [skeletal] remains were 98% intact.”
“They actually sent us a photo of the remains laid out as the skeleton and he was just missing a couple of fingertips, one of his toes, and the kneecap was all he was missing. So that in and of itself was pretty much a miracle” he said.
Father Kapaun’s funeral Mass was held on Sept. 29, 2021, at Wichita’s Hartman Arena, where over 5,000 people came together to remember him.
The entire Kapaun family at the dedication of the statue of Father Emil Kapaun in Pilsen, Kansas, on June 23, 2001. Credit: Photo courtesy of Ray Kapaun
In the days leading up to the funeral, Ray and his wife hosted two of the POWs (prisoners of war) who spent time with Father Kapaun in the prison camp and are the last two still alive.
Ray shared “an incredible moment” with the POWs: They were taken to the mortuary to have a moment alone with Father Kapaun and before entering, one of them, Col. Michael Dowe, turned to Ray and asked: “Am I going to get the chance to hold Father in my arms just one last time?”
“So, we had opened up the casket, and Mike is there, and he just starts crying and he was talking to Father and he’s like, ‘When they came to take you away we just didn’t stand up enough for you, we just didn’t stand up enough,’” Ray recalled.
“I know Father had his hands on his shoulders then as he did in the camp and I know he told him, ‘Oh, it’s OK Mike. You just gotta let me go. I’m where I wanted to be. So it’s OK,’” Ray said. “Those moments were probably the most memorable, the most touching for me.”
When asked how Father Kapaun can be a source of inspiration for not only chaplains but also for everyone, Ray said: “Father gives hope, and Father gives a meaning to find the right in the world, Father always looked for the good in the world.”
“I think especially now with all the division and all the hate and all the things going on in this world, he only saw the person. It wasn’t that you needed to be Catholic; he saw the person, he saw what their soul was and how they treated others.”
He added: “He saw the compassion that was needed, he saw somebody needed help and he would help them at whatever sacrifice to his own health.”
As for what he hopes people will take away from the new film about his uncle, Ray said he hopes people would “see others and not judge others” and that “you don’t have to do anything grandiose to do kind and great things in this world.”
The Redemptor Hominis chapel of the National Shrine of St. John Paul II in Washington, D.C., is decorated with mosaics by Father Marko Rupnik. / Credit: Lawrence OP|Flickr|CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
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1 Comment
They are NOT immigrants. They are foreigners who entered the USA ILLEGALLY. An immigrant is someone who lawfully applies for entry into the USA and, once approved enters in light of day. Stop your purposeful misidentifying people and behavior; that deception is a form of lying.
They are NOT immigrants. They are foreigners who entered the USA ILLEGALLY. An immigrant is someone who lawfully applies for entry into the USA and, once approved enters in light of day. Stop your purposeful misidentifying people and behavior; that deception is a form of lying.