Is it a miracle that Colwich man survived?
Colwich athlete's story catches eye of Vatican investigator
BY ROY WENZL
The Wichita Eagle, Sunday, June 21, 2009
[Chase Kear suffered a traumatic brain injury while pole vaulting during a practice at Hutchinson Community College. The right side of Kear's skull was removed to relieve pressure off his swelling brain after the accident.
The piece of Chase Kear's skull that was removed during surgery to relieve pressure on his brain has been replaced with a ceramic piece. Kear was injured during a pole vaulting accident last October. An offical from the Vatican is scheduled to be in Wichita next week to investigate the canonization of Fr. Emil Kapuan. Relatives of Chase prayed the Fr. Kapaun prayer often while Chase was near death.]
COLWICH - "Chase survived in part because hundreds of people prayed to Father Emil Kapaun to intercede on his behalf. It was absolutely a miracle." — Paula Kear, Chase's mother
People in Colwich like to touch Chase Kear's arm or his shoulder with their fingers. Or they hug him. "Miracle Man," they say. "Let me touch the miracle." With anybody else in Colwich, this would be just talk. But it's not just talk to the Vatican.
Prompted in part by what the Kear family has said publicly, and partly by a preliminary investigation begun by the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, a Vatican investigator named Andrea Ambrosi will arrive from Italy in Wichita on Friday.
He will investigate on behalf of the church in Rome whether 20-year-old Chase Kear's survival qualifies as a miracle; whether he survived a severe head injury last year in part because his family and hundreds of friends successfully prayed thousands of prayers to the soul of Father Emil Kapaun, a U.S. Army chaplain from Pilsen, Kan., who died a hero in the Korean War.
Ambrosi, a lawyer by training, is coming here to thoroughly "and skeptically" investigate whether Chase's story is a miracle, said the Rev. John Hotze, the judicial vicar for the Wichita diocese. The church requires miracles to elevate a person to sainthood.
Hotze has investigated Kapaun's proposed sainthood for eight years, which is only a fraction of the time the church has been considering whether to elevate Kapaun to sainthood.
Soldiers came out of prisoner-of-war camps in 1953 with incredible stories about Kapaun's heroism and faith. Across Kansas, his memory is kept alive at Wichita's Kapaun Mount Carmel High School, in his hometown of Pilsen and elsewhere.
Kapaun is so well-known and so highly regarded by area Catholics that the diocese has received other reports of miracles involving Kapaun, Hotze said. Ambrosi on Friday will consult area physicians in at least three such cases, including Chase's, Hotze said.
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