Church devotes corner as place of prayer for Kauaians fighting in Iraq

It started out with an American flag placed in a corner of Immaculate Conception Church in Kapaia.

It is now a full-blown shrine to the country and the men and women fighting for freedom in Iraq.

The “freedom corner,” or “freedom wall,” also grew out of a parish’s frustration at not being able to do much about the war, being so far removed from it, said the Rev. Paul McLeod, the church’s pastor.

“It’s our having to do something, because we’re so far away from the war,” he said.

“What we did, in one corner of the church, we started calling it a ‘freedom wall,’ and we put the American flag up,” and nothing else, McLeod said.

“Consequently, flowers started appearing, with pictures of some of the people who are fighting over there now from Kaua’i.

“But, mostly, a preponderance of flowers has arrived, so that whole corner is all for that. And it keeps replenishing itself over the time,” he said.

“So it’s very unusual for us to have that in the church, especially at this time of the year,” he said of the pre-Easter Lenten season Catholics are observing.

Many visitors have also brought flowers, and the wall is always mentioned in McLeod’s homily at weekend masses.

With Easter 12 days away, it’s likely the freedom wall will remain after the resurrection of Christ is celebrated at the church on Sunday, April 20.

“They’re going to stay up there until the war is pretty much over,” he said. “As long as our people are getting killed over there, it’ll be up.”