Devotees of war hero Emil Kapaun hoped a meeting at the Vatican on Monday would speed Kapaun’s journey toward sainthood.

It won’t.

Those who love the memory of the Army chaplain and Medal of Honor winner from Kansas will have to adjust their expectations.

Before this week, Catholic diocese leaders in Wichita were saying the Vatican might make Kapaun a saint within the next couple of years. But Vatican leaders told Wichita Bishop Carl Kemme on Monday that it could take a lot longer.

Vatican investigators made it clear they don’t doubt the heroism in Kapaun’s story. “A masterpiece,” one Vatican official called it.

But a key in why this will now take possibly many years is that they question whether he was a martyr, meaning a man who was murdered for his faith.

Kemme said he now thinks it will be at least five years before Kapaun will be considered for beatification, the next step on the ladder to sainthood. Kapaun was named a “Servant of God” in 1993, the first step in the sainthood process.

Full canonization after that – if Vatican cardinals decide Kapaun deserves beatification – could take years longer.

Kemme on Monday made the case for Kapaun’s sainthood to Cardinal Angelo Amato and other investigators with the group of cardinals Amato leads called the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. They make recommendations about sainthood to the pope.

Kemme gave Amato a 1,066-page “positio” – a book containing 14 years of research into Kapaun’s life by the Wichita diocese and Andrea Ambrosi, a Vatican investigator.

“It’s a brick!” Amato said, as he hefted it in the Congregation’s conference room.

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