Father Charles Kram Jr. (1929-2000)

July 1, 2025

By Columbia staff

July 1, 2025

Father Charles Kram Jr. (Photo courtesy of the Father Kram Project / fatherkram.com)

Paralyzed by polio at age 22, seminarian Charles Kram Jr. never gave up hope of becoming a priest. Finally ordained 23 years later, he once wrote, “I see my trials… bringing me closer and closer to my Dear Savior, cross and all.”

Kram and his two older siblings were raised on a family farm in Shiner, Texas, where they also attended Catholic school. An active boy with a lively sense of humor, he graduated in 1946, at age 16. He entered seminary in San Antonio that fall, and four years later, he joined Msgr. Netardus Council 3081 in Shiner.

In May 1952, Kram was ordained a subdeacon, but within weeks he was hospitalized with acute back pain. Diagnosed with polio, he was soon paralyzed from the neck down and placed in an iron lung. After regaining the ability to breathe on his own, he returned home.

Over the next 20 years, Kram spent much of his time in prayer. He also operated an amateur radio and an electric typewriter (purchased by his council), using a rubber-tipped stick held in his mouth. He ministered over the airwaves and by letter to people in more than 160 countries who sought his prayers and counsel.

After receiving a special dispensation, he was ordained a priest on Dec. 5, 1975. A banner in the sanctuary read, “Gladly will I glory in my infirmities” (2 Cor 12:9). Assigned as a hospital chaplain, Father Kram celebrated the sacraments and joyfully made rounds in his powered wheelchair for the next two decades.

Father Charles Kram Jr. was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 1999 and died on Aug. 13, 2000. The Diocese of Victoria, Texas, opened his cause for canonization in 2016.

Father Charles Kram Jr. (1929-2000)

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