(February 13, 1929 – September 4, 1967) was a Catholic priest and Maryknoll Missioner killed in action while serving as a Navy chaplain with a Marine Corps infantry unit during the Vietnam War.

Vincent R. Capodanno Jr. was born on Staten Island, New York, on February 13, 1929, the tenth and youngest child of an immigrant father from Gaeta, Italy, and an Italian-American mother.

Capodanno graduated from Curtis High School on February 4, 1947, then took night classes at Fordham University for a year while working as an insurance clerk.

On Memorial Day weekend, May 21, 2006, Capodanno's designation as a Servant of God was announced in Washington D.C., by Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA.

[15] In 2022, a Vatican advisory panel recommended suspending the sainthood cause, evidently concerned that Capodanno's heroism reflected the battlefield more than religion and that his cause was being led by the American military more than the Maryknoll religious order.

Disregarding the intense enemy small-arms, automatic-weapons, and mortar fire, he moved about the battlefield administering last rites to the dying and giving medical aid to the wounded.

When an exploding mortar round inflicted painful multiple wounds to his arms and legs, and severed a portion of his right hand, he steadfastly refused all medical aid.

Instead, he directed the corpsmen to help their wounded comrades and, with calm vigor, continued to move about the battlefield as he provided encouragement by voice and example to the valiant Marines.

[2] In March 1971, the Knights of Columbus, Madonna Council in Staten Island began a public campaign for a permanent memorial honoring Capodanno in his home borough.

[20][21] Near the midpoint of Staten Island's Father Capodanno Boulevard, at the corner of Sand Lane, a monument in the chaplain's honor is made of light gray Barre granite, stands 8' high and 4' wide (2.4m x 1.2m) and has a bronze plaque.

Near the north end of the boulevard, alongside Fort Wadsworth's Father Capodanno Memorial Chapel, stands a 1977 statue of the chaplain praying for a fallen corpsman during their final battle.

[22] The nearby South Beach neighborhood is the location of Father Vincent Capodanno Catholic Academy, formed by the merger of two parish elementary schools in 2020.

Within four months after his death in 1967, almost $4,000 (equivalent to $40,000 in 2023) had been raised by organizations such as The American Legion, The Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Knights of Columbus, and the Marine Corps League.