Chaplain’s Memorial @ Coast Guard chapel, Staten Island. Tony Carnes/A Journey through NYC religions

Memorial Day. Remember our military chaplains.

Father Vincent Capodanno is remembered as a man “completely dedicated to the spiritual care of his Marines.”

Father Capodanno, a Maryknoll priest from New York City and Navy chaplain, died in Operation Swift in the Thang Binh district of the Que Son Valley in Vietnam. He went among the wounded and dying, giving last rites. Wounded in the face and hand, he went to help a wounded corpsman only yards from an enemy machine gun and was killed.

Father Vincent Capodanno, who died on September 4, 1967, was one of the “great priest chaplains,” said Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services in his homily at a Mass, celebrated at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, according to the Boston Pilot Catholic News.

Growing up in the 1930s and 1940s, Vincent was familiar with the missionary work of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society, the Maryknolls, through their magazine, The Field Afar. Often before classes at Curtis High School on Staten Island, Vincent attended daily Mass at his home parish, a practice he continued after graduation and during his undergraduate years at Fordham University. 

He responded to a call of God by applying to the Maryknoll order and was accepted in 1949.

After nine years of intensive preparation in theology, academics, and basic survival tactics to fulfill the order’s mission to “Go and Teach All Nations,” Vincent completed his seminary training and was ordained in 1958 by Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York.

Accompanied by the tolling of the seminary’s bell, an annual tradition of the departure service, Father Capodanno learned his destination: the Republic of China in Taiwan. He arrived on the island in 1959 and immediately began studying the language and culture of the Hakka-Chinese.

Aware of Father Capodanno’s ability to handle great challenges, his superiors assigned him to go to Hong Kong. Capodanno suggested that God might want him to take an even greater challenge: serving the American naval troops on their way to Vietnam. So, he sought permission to join the Navy Chaplain Corps intending to serve the increasing number of Marine troops in Vietnam. Eventually, Maryknoll granted this request, and after finishing Officer Candidate School, during Holy Week of 1966, Father Capodanno reported to the 7th Marines in Vietnam. 

Later transferred to a medical unit, Father Capodanno was more than a priest ministering within the horrific arena of war. He became a constant companion to the Marines: living, eating, and sleeping in the same conditions as the men. He established libraries, gathered and distributed gifts, and organized outreach programs for the local villagers. Such work “energized” him, and he requested an extension to remain with the Marines.

It was during his second tour with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines that Father Vincent Capodanno made the ultimate sacrifice. After hours of heavy fighting from a North Vietnamese ambush, Father Capodanno, himself seriously injured, sighted and ran to the assistance of a wounded corpsman and the Marine he was assisting. They were pinned down by an enemy machine gunner but Capodanno continued to administer medical and spiritual attention. Despite being unarmed, the enemy opened fire, and Capodanno, the victim of 27 bullet wounds, died performing his final act as a good and faithful servant of God.

Posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 1969, Lieutenant Capodanno was also the recipient of the Navy Bronze Star medal, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star, and the Purple Heart Medal. Soon after his death, the first chapel bearing his name was dedicated on Hill 51 in Que Son Valley, Vietnam; Chaplain Capodanno had helped build this simple place of prayer and peace that was constructed of thatched palms and bamboo. In February 1968, within five months of his death, the chapel at the Navy Chaplains School at Newport, RI, was dedicated to the Capodanno Memorial Chapel. 

A significantly prestigious memorial was the naming of the USS Capodanno, a ship whose motto “Duty with Honor” exemplified the chaplain service of Father Capodanno. During its 20 years of operational service, it was further distinguished as the first ship in the US Fleet to receive a Papal Blessing while docked in Naples. 

Lewis Williams, an iconographer, revealed the priest in his military uniform holding a prayer book, a premonition of his total sacrifice for God and country.

Note: Father Capodanno is memorialized in various ways on Staten Island. Some of the biographical material is taken from the “Father Capodanno Biography” on the Archdiocese for Military Services, USA.

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