The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Saint Makers: Inside the Catholic Church and How a War Hero Inspired a Journey of Faith by Joe Drape

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

The Saint Makers: Inside the Catholic Church and How a War Hero Inspired a Journey of Faith by Joe Drape Part biography of a wartime adventurer, part detective story, and part faith journey, this intriguing book from New York Times journalist and bestselling author Joe Drape takes us inside the modern-day process of the making of a saint. The Saint Makers chronicles the unlikely alliance between Father Hotze and Dr. Andrea Ambrosi, a country priest and a cosmopolitan Italian canon lawyer, as the two piece together the life of a long dead Korean War hero and military chaplain and fashion it into a case for eternal divinity. Joe Drape offers a front row seat to the Catholic Church's saint-making machinery-which, in many ways, has changed little in two thousand years-and examines how, or if, faith and science can co-exist. This rich and unique narrative leads from the plains of Kansas to the opulent halls of the Vatican, through brutal Korean War prison camps, and into the stories of two individuals, Avery Gerleman and Chase Kear, whose lives were threatened by illness and injury and whose family and friends prayed to Father Kapaun, sparking miraculous recoveries in the heart of America. Gerleman is now a nurse, and Kear works as a mechanic in the aerospace industry. Both remain devoted to Father Kapaun, whose opportunity for sainthood relies in their belief and medical charts. At a time when the church has faced severe scandal and damage, and the world is at the mercy of a pandemic, this is an uplifting story about a priest who continues to an example of goodness and faith. Ultimately, The Saint Makers is the story of a journey of faith -- for two priests separated by seventy years, for the two young athletes who were miraculously brought back to life with (or without) the intercession of the divine, as well as for readers -- and the author -- trying to understand and accept what makes a person truly worthy of the Congregation of Saints in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Joe Drape is an award-winning sportswriter for the New York Times. He is the author of seven books, including the New York Times bestsellers Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen and American Pharoah: The Untold Story of the Triple Crown Winner's Legendary Rise. His book Black Maestro was the inaugural winner of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award. A native of Kansas City and Jesuit educated at Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, Drape earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Southern Methodist University. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The chrisvossshow.com.

Hey, we're coming to you with another great podcast. We certainly appreciate you turning in to the big show here to see the video interview of this uh podcast you will want to go to youtube.com forward slash chris voss hit that bell notification button to get that warm fuzzy feeling something like you belong to something and it matters it doesn't but it will give you that feeling no we really love you serious press the button bell um go to goodreads.com for just chris voss and follow all the books we're reading and reviewing over there. You can also go to facebook.com, The Chris Voss Show, and see everything we're doing there as well. Instagram.com for just Chris Voss.

And also LinkedIn as well. There's different groups there, too, you can just take and subscribe to. Today, we have a most excellent accomplished author on he's the author of a multitude of books he's bringing us this newest book that he has out called the saint makers inside the catholic church and how a war hero inspired a journey of faith his name is joe drape joe is an award-winning sports writer for the New York Times. He is the author of six books, including the New York Times bestseller, Our Boys, a perfect season on the plains with the Smith Center Redmen and American Pariah,

the untold story of triple crown winners,ary Rise. So he's written several books. He appeared on all three networks, Nightly, National Newscast, as well as NBC's Today Show. And is a frequent guest on ESPN. His book, Black Maestro, was the inaugural winner of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award. How are you doing there, Joe? Chris, I'm doing tremendous. Thanks for having me on here. Thanks for coming. We certainly appreciate it. And you've got the new book out. Give us your plugs if you want to find you on the interwebs and order up that book.

At Joe Drape is my Twitter handle. I'm on Goodreads under author Joe Drape as well. It can be found at Amazon. I've got a page there as well. Those are the main things, and it can be found at local bookstores everywhere or online or however you want to get your reading. There you go. Get your reading on, if you will. So what motivated you to want to write this book? Chris, it was an interesting departure for me. You see there I am a sports writer. All of my previous books have been about sports.

I did grow up in the Catholic Church. I was educated at a Jesuit high school, and that was part of my DNA. But really what happened here, and it's got to say that kind of God moves in mysterious ways. One of my editors for two of my books came to me and said, do you want to do something outside sports? And I said, yeah, that would be kind of fun. He goes, what do you have in mind? What I had in mind was a book, which is the same makers makers but based on the life of father emil capon father emil capon was a priest a military chaplain in the korea war died at the age of 35 as a prisoner of war there was basically martyred uh had this incredible presence and is credited for saving thousands of lives,

both on the battlefield without carrying a weapon and in the prison camp, just by keeping his guys alive. His boys is what he called them. And how I'd come across this was, you know, 10 years ago, I moved my family to small town Kansas to write Our Boys, which is simply a book about a small town high school football team that won 67 games in a row. And it's sort of the anti-Friday night lights. The coach never talked about winning or losing. His only two rules was let's get a little better each day

and love one another. And Father Capon was from that part of Kansas. And, you know, he was a son of farmers, hardworking, growing up in the Depression, knew he had a vocation, a calling, wanted to be a priest, and found his, like, life's purpose when he was asked to be a chaplain at a nearby army base. So, you know, I had this incredible life that I wanted to explore. Simultaneous to that, the people of Wichita, Kansas, that area was trying to make him a saint. And that is a process in the Catholic church that you have to go through. And it's very rigorous, in fact, to tell you how rigorous the elapsed time between the death of a candidate and his or her canonization is 181 years.

So this is the thing that you get into. So I had that aspect of it. I thought, okay, I grew up in this faith, but I don't know how you become a saint. So I thought, let's make a detective story out of it. So, you know, I've got this remarkable life. I've got this process that I don't understand. And I suspected people didn't understand. And then as I was about six years into the book and thinking about it, I realized that,

you know, to really finish it and to get the most out of it, I had to re-examine my spiritual life that, you know, to use a sports cliche, since I'm a sports writer, is I had developed the yips when it became the prayer. I couldn't hit a two-foot putt, couldn't make the throw to first base from second. And that became sort of the third element on this is, you know, who was I? What did I believe? And how was I going to have an authentic dialogue with Christ or the higher power, whatever religion you're in, it doesn't matter. And so that's how it all came together.

You know, Father Capon is a superhero more or less, and no less the Catholic church saints are their superheroes. They're people you want to imitate and aspire to, but they also got to be relatable and you know as a son of the heartland he was relatable to me he was a guy who was from the midwest who wasn't anything special but who could do some things and did them remarkably nice um so he he passed away how long was he in the prison camps down in the go? He passed away in 1951, they think.

His body was never found. He was 35. You know, I learned a lot about the Korean War. The Korean War was short and brutal. He got captured in 1950 and was probably alive for a year afterwards. They barely had a chance there he he and his men came in there 6 000 of them and 25 000 chinese descended on them within weeks and valiantly and you know he got overwhelmed they were down to about 600 men out of 7 000000. They get captured.

Right from that moment, I mean, before that point, he was beloved because he never left wounded behind. He had this rickety old Jeep that he bounced around foxhole to foxhole, a couple of canteens with him, fruit, berries, whatever he had. And he didn't care if you're Catholic or not. He really didn't push any religion. He just said, here, he smoked a pipe, here's some tobacco. You've got time for a little prayer. They'd nod their head and then they'd move on. But he would come and pull the wounded off the battlefield. And, you know, he did that over hundreds of times with artillery banging around, ducking guns.

You know, his pipe even got shot out of his mouth. Yeah, and, you know, that was his on-the-battlefield derring-do. But where he really sort of took off as a folk hero for these guys was as soon as they got captured, a Chinese soldier was about ready to shoot a wounded Brooklyn sergeant named Herb Miller. And Father Capone ran over there, pulled the rifle away from the guy, picked Herb up and put him on his back. And he said, you know, I'll carry him. And it took 60 miles.

It took almost a month in sub-below zero temperature through the frozen tundra of the Korean mountains. And by that one quick example, all the other soldiers who were captured went and picked up their wounded on there. So he set that example from the good go. They lived under these terrible conditions

where the rations were basically a fistful of bird seed. They call it millet. All right. Jesus. And, you know, he'd go out, he'd steal food from the guards. He would forge and bring stuff back. He was a resourceful farm kid.

He was able to make tools where they could, you know, get more food and build latrines and build things to make life comfortable. And, you know, he was a trader. food and build latrines and build things to make life comfortable. And, you know, he was a trader. He traded old socks for blankets to the guards. He was just one of these guys who kept people's spirits up. And, you know, the Chinese commander there didn't like him. And as soon as he got a chance where Father Capone was very ill, he made sure that he would never come out of what they called the death house.

Oh, wow. That's unfortunate. So you track in the book the journey of his life from beginning to end? Yeah. I started in the plains of Kansas, in Pilsen, Kansas, a little southeast town, Czech community. Both his parents spoke Czech. I followed him through the seminaries in Missouri and that.

He came back to Kansas to the parish he grew up in. And that parish, I mean, this is a guy who knew what he wanted. He used to say fake masses when he was six or seven years old. You know, he'd put up little sawhorses and make an altar. And, you know, then he really found his way. I mean, it makes sense. He was in his early 20s when he became a chaplain. He was seeing men like himself in the troops. He liked the training. You know, he liked everything but carrying the gun. And he won a bronze star in World War II. He had gone over there then. And, in fact, he's the most decorated military chaplain in U.S. history. Wow. Wow.

That's quite a feat. And then in your book, I guess you make an argument for him to attain sainthood. Yeah, and that was the other part of it. There's four steps to sainthood, Chris. Once you say, I think this guy is holy, you raise your hand, and you say, we wanted him to be considered. Now, that is expensive. Okay, that's step one.

The second step is you have amassed this biography of the guy. You've proven he was virtuous and he was historically accurate. And this is taken to the Vatican and examined by experts in theology and history. And once they say, yes, we believe this man was a man of virtue, he becomes venerated. Now, it's interesting, the next two spots, and thus the 181 years, you've got to be able to attribute two miracles to your candidate, let's say. And a miracle in the Catholic Church is considered a recovery from death or near death that can't be medically or scientifically explained.

And in this case, they have two cases, both young people, both athletes, a pole vaulter from a Kansas college and a youth soccer player, a little young woman who's now not so young a woman. They were on their deathbeds, thought that it was over, both in the hospital for 87 days or more. And they pulled them off to let them die. And miraculously, they didn't. And they had recovered all their faculty. So they take those cases to the Vatican and the Cardinals and

the Pope look at that. And if they can prove, if they agree that there's no explanation for it, other than the fact that the friends and families of these victims prayed to Father Capone, which they did, and asked for his intercession then you become beatified so you're on the doorstep of canon of uh sainthood there but the length of time is the clock starts again now another miracle has to happen that hasn't happened yet so you kind of got to wait a long time till that goes. So that, those are the four steps. He was about ready to pass the second, but it happened right in March 9th when the pandemic broke out in Italy,

they were in the worst shape first and they had to call the meetings and assemblies off. Wow. So does he have a good chance? So does he have to wait 180 years? You know, you kind of think so. I mean, not 180. He will become a saint. There's no doubt about that.

But it's probably not in my lifetime. It's going to take a while. And that's what I discovered when I was writing the book, is that it's one thing to have miracles. It's one thing to have a great life. But just like all of life, politics and celebrity come into play here. You know, the Catholic Church has decided saint making is a good marketing tool, especially in populations where they're struggling. Latin America, they're losing ground to evangelists over there.

In Africa, they don't have enough priests. In Asia, they don't have enough priests. So causes is what they call them, the candidates. Causes from those regions kind of move to the front of the list. So he kind of comes back down a little bit. So what were some of the things that you discovered or surprised you or maybe some stories that would stick out to readers or entice them about this gentleman? Well, you know, Father Capon

really led a life that was Christ-like. And I guess that's part of the quality of virtue. And his final hours or days are pretty remarkable in the impact that they had on his fellow soldiers. They came for him because he was incapacitated. He had an eye patch on. He was blind in one eye. He was down to about 80 pounds, a broken hip and leg.

And the guards came from him, and his fellow soldiers started a riot. And they almost thought they were going to shoot them all. And Father Capon kind of mustered up some final strength and said, no, guys, don't do this. I want to go be with my maker. Just as I'm going to heaven, this is what I've lived my life from. So when they're carrying him out, he not only asks forgiveness from, he forgives the Chinese guards, but then he asks them to forgive him. That really had an impact on all those American soldiers who were what? So much of an impact is that two years later,

when he was released, or when the prisoners were released, he went and died. They've not found the body. The camp number five was his prison camp, and that had the less casualties of all the other Korean prison camps. They all say it was because of Father Kapan, you know, willed those guys to live. But when they came out, they were led by a Jewish soldier who had spent four months making a crucifix with the likeness of Father Kapan. And it was a major Gerald Fink, a fighter pilot.

And he had never even met the priest he was captured up long after he was dead but they came out and to a man they went to every newspaper guy they could find and said this is the most heroic man we've ever had met you got to tell his story we got to tell you a story. And so the Medal of Honor campaign started right then in 1953. And it was kind of remarkable. It was on the cover of Saturday Evening Post, which was a big magazine at the time. He was on television, played by James Whitmore in a series kind of like Combat, you know, that every week it focused on a new soldier and a new deal. So he's very famous, at least in popular history at the time. And then he just sort of faded away.

So it was really interesting to, and I'm sure there's Korean War veterans out there may be listening. The Korean War veterans really don't want to talk about it. It was brutal. They have PTSD to this day. may be listening the korean war veterans really don't want to talk about it it was brutal they have pdsd to this day one gentleman hasn't slept in the same room with his wife mainly because he has terrible nightmares and he's afraid he's going to hurt her accidentally uh just thrashing around and this was something that they could rally around, and it was therapy for them to try to get him the Medal of Honor. And so it started in 1953, but it didn't happen until 2013

when Obama did it. And still nine of his fellow prisoners were still alive and came to the ceremony in the East Room. And, you know, they grumbled. They said to the president, and he said this in his speech, he said, what took so long? And they were upset about it. But, you know, he's really a guy that shouldn't be lost in history, and now we're seeing that he's not going to be lost in history, we hope. Yeah, it's great that you've written a book to document that.

And certainly, I mean, he, I mean, what, 40, was it 40 years later or 50 years later? I mean, his, the surviving people are still championing him. And he made a real big impact in their lives. Yes, he did. And, you know, he's made a real big impact in people who've never met him, but who heard of him, especially in that part of Kansas. Their prayer cards and a prayer card for non-Catholics is just looks like a playing card.

And there's a small prayer that you say to him asking for his help to intercede on your behalf for whatever you're worried about. And, you know, his fame spread across the midwest and military bases of course a lot of milk gis have known this story and and are cherished to him and it's a lot of it is because he was ecumenical he didn't care if you're jewish catholic atheist he had muslims in that prison camp uh He was good to everybody. He was a guy who could recognize goodness and exuded that. So, you know, he's had this following that's going on. And it's kind of neat to become, to even get this off the ground, to become a saint.

A priest in Kansas named Father John Hotze. He was the guy who spent 13 years of his life amassing 8,272 pages of documents of his testimony of people who knew him from cradle to grave. And, you know, that is remarkable that people still remember this guy and still want him to be recognized on a more divine level even than the Medal of Honor. That's awesome. That's awesome.

So as you went through this process, I think I saw in one of your video interviews, I think you were talking about some process that you have with this and your faith in your church? Yeah, Chris, I, you know, as I started down this road, I realized that, you know, I was documenting this holy man. I wanted to do him justice, but I didn't quite get him. And I didn't quite get how you could be that courageous, that service-oriented, and that, you know, blindly believing in a higher power. And I started revisiting all the books I read as a kid, scripture, I would listen to podcasts, and I heard Gary Busey on a podcast. And here's a guy who has, you know, been through hell and back the highs the lows

addictions almost died and you know he said something that stuck in my head he's like hell is for people uh religion is for people who are afraid of hell spirituality is people who've already been to hell and uh you know that made. So my antenna was up to all this kind of thing. And it finally sort of got dialed in was there was a Jesuit priest up here. I'm in New York and he's a fellow writer and he was at our parish. I just kind of reached out and invited him to lunch one day and told him what I'm telling you, you know, I'm having a little problem connecting this. And he says, do you pray?

I was like, yeah, I pray. And he goes, what do you do? And I was like, I don't know. Our fathers, Hail Marys, you know, prayers. And he said, well, what do you pray for? And I said, you know, I guess Thanksgiving, gratitude. I don't know. I mean, you know, I just pray.

And he said, well, you you have a teenage son and i do and i do and i said yeah father i do and he goes if he was worried or troubled about something wouldn't you want him to come talk to you and you know let you help him and i was like sure that's i would hope he'd do that he goes well goes, well, that's what God does. God wants us to come talk to him. And, you know, so I'm feeling like a sixth grader squirming in my desk right there already. And then he asked me, he goes, do you ever try to pray to Father Capone? And it just smacked me upside the head. Here I've been working on this thing, thinking about him for seven or eight years, and it didn't dawn on me once to offer a prayer to him.

So, you know, I'm always kind of careful about this because I'm not saved. I'm not any holier than I was. But the whole exercise taught me, led me, that if you want a rich and authentic spiritual life, you've got to put the effort into it. And it doesn't mean you're going to all of a sudden be blissful or you're going to be free of sin and temptation because I'm bad far more days than I'm good. All right. But you know, if you try every day to be a good person, a good husband, father, colleague, neighbor, member of the community, you're going to be better off for it. And hopefully the people around you will be better off for it. So, you know, it was, that's the whole inspired a journey of faith part of the title is, you know, I'm no spring chicken, and I'm glad I figured it out now rather than never, and it's just something I'm working on every day. Nice. So what are we

covering in the book that would be interesting to readers? Well, you know, the process is really expensive. You know, you think it's a nice thing becoming a saint, but his cause is up to $600,000 already. Holy crap. There's other ones that go to a million dollars. What? And you know, what happens is the priests and all them,

they do it from the goodness of the heart. Father John Huntsley, and he rallied volunteers. They got that done. But once it goes to Rome, you need canon lawyers. And anybody who's ever been involved with a lawyer of any kind knows it gets expensive. And when you have a 181-year lag time, that meter runs long and hot. And so, you know, that was something that was very interesting to me is how much money it costs. And then it was interesting to me that some of the saints that we think about every day really never existed. St. Christopher, for example,

the patron saint of travel, he wasn't a man. He was a giant from legend who lived next to a river. And a hermit told him how he would be of service, which he would be the ferry that he would carry people from one side of the river to the other. And he did that for a long time. And one day a little boy about four comes gets on his shoulders starts taking him over and he can't carry him it's heavy he's almost drowned so toughest crossing he ever had and when he got him down he collapsed on the other side the boy says you know i am jesus you have carried the heavens the earth my kingdom on shoulders. That's why it was so long. So from that, we get St. Christopher, the patron saint of travel.

St. Jude, you know, they had the hospitals. He's the hopeful lost causes. He was only mentioned once in the Bible. Nobody really knows anything about him. Hmm. Pretty interesting. So what do these the canon lawyers,

what do they do? What they do is they're sort of lobbyists, arm twisters, argumental. They're the guys that take the information and then they roam the halls of the Vatican, for lack of a better term, and make sure roam the halls of the Vatican for lack of better term and make sure they know all of the 35 bishops and cardinals

involved in the process, you know, argue their case of why this guy should be not only from his life and his miracles, but why it would be good for business to do an American right now. You know, it is, it is, they, they pulled the levers of power and they're up against things. I mean, the most recent near saint to be edified was a, an Italian. Italy has half of the 10,000 saints.

There's definitely a home field advantage. And there is a boy named Carlo Sicunti who died when he was 15 in 2006 from a leukemia, tragically. And before that, he was known for, he was able to hunt miracles on the internet. He was a computer genius. He went viral several times. And so he dies. And that 181 years has now already gone down to 14 years to put him on the doorstep. And he's been beatified. Now they will wait for one more miracle. And you know, the reason that happens is because it's good business to say, we have a millennial computer-savvy genius who went viral, and, you know, we're going to reach an audience we need to reach.

And I just pulled up here, I think Mother Teresa got sainthood, right? She didn't have to wait 180 years? No, yeah, exactly. Mother Teresa was five years the quickest ever and that makes sense she's the oprah of spiritual yeah celebrity i mean you know everybody knew who she was and then john paul too who was the prior pope uh and he's the guy who made more saints than anybody he made 483 of them more than his six predecessors he was a guy who traveled to more countries than any Pope in history because he liked being out. He was a gregarious guy.

And he would literally call up the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, who handles all this, and said, you know, I'm going to Peru. Who do we have in the pipeline over there? Because then he'd like to go uh you know announce somebody being beatified venerated or sainted it was part of his his shtick if you will that's pretty awesome man so an interesting read a great story about a man's life and a spectacular hero in the eyes of of the medal of honor yeah Yeah, it's fun. It was fun. And again, you know, especially being a sports writer,

it was an interesting left turn to go down this path, and I'm better for it. I'm glad I did it. And now, second to me getting this book out into the world is for my Kansas City Chiefs to win in the coming Super Bowl. There you go. Well, I'm rooting for you. I think they're technically in my – I'm a Raiders fan, so I think they're in my area.

But I've kind of moved away from football because I'm a Raiders fan, man. It's painful. Yeah. That's – I grew up watching the Raiders Chiefs. Yeah. Those are Chiefs. Yeah. Those are iconic games. Yeah, iconic games. And, yeah, so it'll be interesting.

The Buccaneers, though, they got that Tom Brady throwing on there. Yeah, he's pretty good, isn't he? Yeah, it's funny that the Patriots didn't make it to the Super Bowl after dumping him, but he gets there anyway. They're just like, well, I guess we left too early. Well, you know, I'm hearing all the stats on the radio because I've got friends in Boston who are just apoplectic. They're heartbroken, upset.

You know, he's been in the league 20 years, and he's gone to 10 Super Bowls. He's been to 20% of all Super Bowls that have ever happened. It's crazy how much he's done. He's 43 years old. I couldn't do that at 43. I don't think anybody's going to be able to catch his records. I mean, Brett Favre was such a spectacular player. There were a lot of great players.

Brett Montana. But, yeah, Tom Brady's just a freak in nature, really, when it comes down to it. One of those Super Bowls was the Raiders that they stole with the – I forget what that was. But they stole that from us. I was at that game. Were you really at that game?

I was. I covered it for the times. It was in the snow, in the grass. Was that what they called it, in the grass? There was some, you know, he like, I don't know, it's whatever. But, you know, I think our quarterback might give Tom Brady a run for the records as well. Yeah. It'll be interesting.

It'll be interesting. It almost looked like they were going to lose that game because I think Green Bay was coming back. But I know a lot of Buffalo Bill fans that are friends of mine are really heartbroken because they just can't ever get a break after the nineties. You know, I took my son to the Superbowl last year. I waited 50 years. Don't talk to me about getting there. Okay. You know,

it was there four times in between me in between my drinks of water. Well, there you go. Well, it's been wonderful to have you on, Joe, to talk about your book and stuff. Give us your plugs so people can look them up and order the book on the interwebs. It's The Saint Makers Inside the Catholic Church and How a War Hero Inspired a Journey of Faith.

You can catch it on Amazon. On Twitter, it's at Joe Drape. And Goodreads, Joe Drape there too. Thanks for having me, Chris. Thanks for coming. We certainly appreciate it. To my audience, be sure to follow us as well on Goodreads, 4-6-Chris-Voss.

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