Please join us on Sunday, February 12, 2023, for a special Mass and reception in memory of Fordham alumni and Medal of Honor recipient Father Vincent Capodanno, MM. A member of Fordham College’s Class of 1952, Father Capodanno was posthumously awarded our Nation’s highest award for valor for his actions as Navy Chaplain with the United States Marine Corps in Vietnam in 1967.
As part of this year’s celebration of 175 years of Fordham’s military legacy, in February we will honor both Fordham’s Vietnam Veterans and our alumni contributions to the chaplaincy.
The Mass will occur at 11 am at Fordham’s University Church on the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx, with a reception following.
Please RSVP for this event by clicking here.
Father Capodanno represents the finest traditions of Fordham’s Vietnam Veterans and chaplains. As a commuter student, Father Capodanno felt a growing sense of vocation during his commutes from Staten Island to work on Wall Street while attending night classes at Fordham. Called to the Maryknoll Missionaries, he served six years in the mountains of Taiwan until volunteering for service as a military chaplain in 1965. Completing a year’s tour in Vietnam in June 1967, he returned to Vietnam for a second tour after only a month on leave in the United States. On Labor Day, 1967, Father Capodanno went to a unit in danger of being overrun to provide aid and comfort to the wounded, refusing medical evacuation after his own wounding, and was ultimately killed in action while moving to the aid of a wounded medic in a direct line of enemy fire.