The Story of Fr. Vincent Capodanno

A Servant at War

By: Bob French

Burning napalm. Fleeing refugees. Soldiers slogging through rice paddies and jungle trails.

Booby traps, snipers, ambushes, bloody firefights. The anguished faces of the wounded and dying, desperate for compassion and comfort. When we think of the Vietnam War, these are the images we see.

What these searing images don’t reveal is that Jesus, too, was present in Vietnam. Alive in his followers—both the American and the Vietnamese Christians caught up in the conflict—he brought light and grace into a situation of horrible suffering. One person who reflected him in an extraordinary way was Fr. Vincent R. Capodanno. During his short stint as a Marine Corps chaplain, Capodanno gained an almost legendary reputation for selfless love and dedication.

“I know and swear that there are living chapels in Vince’s name,” another chaplain said of Capodanno’s transforming impact on his fellow Marines. “Those ‘grunts’ saw Christ when they saw Vince.”

A Close, Loving…

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