Czech it out! Pilsen turns 150
Staff writer
Festivities began early during Pilsen’s 150th anniversary Saturday. Gunshots and traditional Czech polkas began ringing out at 8 a.m., as youths and adults shot skeet.
Thurston Silhan, a freshman at Hillsboro who shot skeet in the youth division, drives to Pilsen each weekend to work at the Chaplain Kapaun Museum shop.
“My dad’s from here,” he explained.
Jonah Svitak hails from a mile north of Pilsen. “Pretty good competition out there,” Svitak, a junior at Centre, said. “People were shooting good.”
While the current population of the community is less than 70, Saturday brought around 350 to Pilsen.
“It’s neat to see people in the town again, celebrating,” Svitak said.
Pilsen is best known as the hometown of Emil Kapaun (pronounced “KAY-pon” in Kansas and “kah-PON” everywhere else), an army chaplain who died as a POW in Korea.
Ever since American soldiers came home lauding Kapaun’s faith, humility, and kindness, the community has worked to have him canonized as a saint by the Catholic church.
In 1993, Pope John Paul II declared Kapaun a servant of God, the first step on the road to canonization. He has not made it to the second step yet, though he was awarded a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor by Barack Obama in 2013.
Pilsen is used to having an influx of visitors. The town sponsors Kapaun Day each year on the first Sunday in June.
“Last year, we had close to 500 people,” said Kelly Krch, the museum administrator.
At Saturday’s celebration, resident Kathy Silhan eulogized Kapaun from a lawn chair while watching her grandson shoot skeet.
We’re doing our best to get the word out on a very special person,” she said. “Through Father Kapaun’s intercession to God, miracles have been performed.”
Following the skeet, master of ceremonies Gene Winkler switched down a polka playing from the speakers.
“Check, one, two, three,” he said into the mic. “Can you hear me now?”
A large crowd took up positions around Remington Rd. as Father Isaac Culter took the mic to read a prayer. Crowd members crossed themselves.
The prayer was followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and a color guard out of Florence, which presented the Stars and Stripes.
After that, the parade began. “God Bless the USA” rang out as the Florence fire department, Sheriff Jeff Soyez, local families, and other notables rolled down the road in homemade floats.
Donning a camouflage uniform, a “Kapaun” nametag, and a chaplain’s helmet, 5-year-old Maddux Bina drove down Remington in a miniature army jeep.
“Chaplain Emil Kapaun for sainthood!” read a paper sign affixed to the jeep.
His father had worn a similar Kapaun costume 36 years prior, Maddux’s grandmother Harriet Bina, said. This time, she’d ordered Maddux’s attire online.
“You can’t get the plain green,” she lamented. “These are more Vietnam colors. But we had to go green. Couldn’t have Desert Storm colors. The patch is what Father Kapuan would’ve had. That’s the 1st Cavalry.”
Bina moved to Pilsen as a young girl 72 years ago. She’s been attending church all that time and is as big a Kapaun devotee as anyone.
Recently, she brought her young grandson to Kapaun’s homestead, then prayed with him over Kapaun’s memorial at the cemetery.
“The number of people who talk how he’s interceded for them is unbelievable,” she said.
That Kapaun’s spirit has performed miracles is essential if he is to be canonized. The Vatican will go as far as to send lawyers to interview witnesses and gather data surrounding miracles.
“Especially in the process of going towards sainthood, nothing is granted. Everything is researched, everything is reviewed — especially when it comes to alleged miracles,” Krch said.
The Catholic Church will try to disprove them as much as possible,” Melissa Stuchlik, a tour guide at the museum, added.
The parade concluded with a smattering of irreverent displays. A rube band serenaded the crowd with the Bohemian national anthem. Two boys and their mother trotted by atop horses, laughing and waving to members of the crowd. A man standing in the back of a pickup truck with a sign that read “Bohemian Man Eating Chicken Out of a Bucket” did in fact eat chicken out of a bucket.
Bina said it was vital for all Americans to have a figure like Kapaun.
“[We’re] taking God out of everything,” she said. “You know, the one thing Father Kapuan said, even back during the time of Nazis, he said he thought the worst thing was Communism. Even way back then. And look what happened.”
More religiosity and patriotism, the kind that had overwhelmed the Pilsen parade, are essential for the well-being of the county, she said.
“Look what’s happened to our schools. We never used to have shootings in schools,” Bina said. “We used to start our school days off standing and giving the Pledge of Allegiance. Where is our support for America today?”
Asked whether gun control might be a more effective solution than patriotism, Bina shook her head.
“You know what happens when they take the guns out of the country? They’re taken over,” she said. “People are lined up and shot. Just like they did in Germany. They took their guns first, and then they killed the people.”
Kapaun presents an interesting paradox with regard to God and guns. Jesus preaches non-violence, and chaplains have always gone onto the battlefield without weapons. But Kapaun remains a military hero, a soldier as well as a saint.
Asked what Kapaun might think of the skeet shooting and gunshots signaling the start of the parade, Pilsen residents said they didn’t think he’d take offense.
“I think skeet shooting, you’re not shooting anything that’s living, so I think he’d be OK,” Krch said.
Stuchlik agreed.
“I’m fairly sure they had to hunt, being a poor family. I think that was kind of a norm for food,” she said. “I’m not sure how he would have found, like, war games… But I think this one would have been OK. Skeet shooting used to be pretty common around here.”
Gesturing towards the various attractions, Bina added: “I think that’s just trying to attract the crowd with different events going on. That has nothing to do with Father Kapaun. Just like the bouncy thing. What did that have to do with Father Kapaun?”
The Catholic church is inundated with thousands of petitions every year for various figures from around the world to be canonized. Only one or two are processed each year.
While Kapaun’s odds may be low, the people of Pilsen remain steadfast.
“He wouldn’t like all this attention... putting him up for sainthood,” Bina said. “He would probably be telling us, ‘don’t be doing that.’ But it’s important for us.”