 |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
August
8, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 14Oakland,
CA
Hawaii is blessed with two missionary ‘saints’
Blessed Damien of Molokai
One of the most celebrated personalities in Hawaiian history is Father
Damien, a Catholic priest revered for his work with victims of leprosy
on the island of Molokai.
He was a Belgian, born in 1840 and baptized Joseph de Veuster. Following
the example of his older brother, he entered the Congregation of the Sacred
Hearts of Jesus and Mary (also known as the Picpus Fathers), in Louvain.
Upon taking his first vows he adopted the name Damien and became a Picpus
Brother in October 1860.
When ill health prevented his brother from accepting an assignment as
a missionary to the then Sandwich Islands, Brother Damien volunteered
to go in his place. He arrived in Honolulu in March 1864 and was ordained
to the priesthood in May at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu.
Assigned to the Big Island of Hawaii, he ministered there for eight years.
As the number of sailors and foreign traders increased their visits to
the island kingdom, native Hawaiians began falling ill to foreign diseases.
Thousands succumbed to measles, cholera, typhus and influenza, but the
most dreaded was Hansen’s Disease, or leprosy.
To curb its spread, King Kamehameha IV expelled sufferers to a remote
settlement on the island of Molokai. The royal board of health provided
food and some supplies.
When he learned of the need for priests to provide pastoral care to the
600 exiles on Molokai, Father Damien volunteered and arrived in May 1873.
Although Congregational ministers, other Catholic priests and Mormon elders
had come earlier, he brought a charismatic blend of comfort and hope to
the people who had been sent there.
Armed with a hands-on attitude and outgoing personality, Father Damien
served the community as a priest, built homes with the residents, planted
trees, constructed a water system, organized schools and choirs, nursed
the sick, comforted the dying and buried the dead. He also served as an
advocate for the people and petitioned the royal government for more supplies.
As word spread of his ministry on Molokai, others pastoral workers like
Mother Marianne Cope and members of her community, the Sisters from the
Order of St. Francis, came to join his ministry. Their help was critical
after Father Damien himself contracted leprosy.
Historians note that because the disease is not highly contagious the
priest became sick because he had been careless about hygiene.
He did not always wash his hands after changing the bandages of patients,
refused to separate himself from the people, would use the same poi bowl
that patients ate from and shared his pipe with others.
Father Damien died on April 15, 1889, at the age of 49. Originally buried
next to St. Philomena Church in Molokai, his remains were exhumed in 1936
and reburied at Louvain, Belgium. Pope John Paul II beatified the priest
in 1995 and bestowed on him the title, Blessed Damien of Molokai. The
canonization process is currently underway
Blessed Damien is the spiritual patron of people with Hansen’s Disease,
outcasts, those with HIV/AIDS, and the State of Hawaii. His feast day
is May 10. A statue of Father Damien is part of the National Statuary
Hall collection in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C.
Blessed Marianne Cope
Mother Marianne Cope, who carried on the labors of Father Damien among
the exiled lepers of the Hawaiian Islands, is often called “Molokai’s
other saint.”
This title is a way of recognizing that her life has been overshadowed
by the story of Father Damien, who is beloved in Hawaii and beyond. Although
Mother Marianne’s years of devoted service are less well known,
she has finally received official recognition for her work.
On May 14, 2005, the nun was beatified at the Vatican and now joins Father
Damien awaiting canonization as a saint.
“The life of Blessed Marianne Cope is a wonderful work of divine
grace,” said Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins in a homily during the
beatification ceremony. “For 35 years, she lived, to the full, the
command to love God and neighbors.”
Blessed Marianne Cope learned about service as a youth. Born Barbara Koob
(later changed to Cope) in 1838 to a poor working class family in Germany,
she came to the U.S. with her parents in 1840 and grew up in the Utica,
N.Y. area. When her father became ill, she left school after the eighth
grade to take a factory job and help support her younger siblings.
Nine years later, in 1862, Barbara joined the Sisters of St. Francis in
Syracuse, N.Y. and adopted the name Marianne. The following year she made
her first vows and began work as a teacher and principal in New York elementary
schools. She later became convent superior and then a member of the council
that governed her community. In that position she took part in the establishment
of two of the first hospitals in the central New York area.
Mother Marianne began a new ministry as a nurse-administrator in 1870
at a hospital in Syracuse, N.Y. During the six years she worked there
she was often criticized for accepting alcoholics and other “outcasts”
as patients when other facilities refused them
treatment.
After a Catholic priest in the Hawaiian Islands sent an appeal for someone
to assist in the care of leprosy patients, Mother Marianne traveled to
Honolulu in 1883 with six of her Sisters to manage the Kaka’ako
Branch Hospital on the island of Oahu.
The hospital was a receiving center for patients with Hansen’s Disease
(leprosy) from other islands. Mother Marianne and her crew revamped the
facility and improved the patients’ living conditions and health
care.
In 1885 she opened a home for the healthy daughters of leprosy patients
inside the hospital compound. The children had been shunned by the rest
of society.
The following year when she learned that Father Damien had been diagnosed
with Hansen’s Disease, she alone gave hospitality to the priest
who was treated as an outcast by both Church and government officials
in Honolulu.
A new government in Hawaii decided to close the Oahu hospital in 1887
and sent the patients to the settlement in Molokai. Mother Marianne and
her Sisters also moved to Molokai, arriving there just months before Father
Damien died. They continued the home for boys that the renowned priest
had founded and established a home and school for girls.
Mother Marianne became an example of never-failing optimism, serenity
and trust in God that inspired hope among the Molokai residents and allayed
the Sisters’ fear of catching leprosy.
Although she became wheelchair-bound in her later years due to chronic
kidney disease, she continued her ministry in Molokai until she died at
the age of 80 in 1918. Her feast is celebrated Jan. 23, the date of her
birth.
Blessed
Damien de Veuster, who labored for years among the lepers of Molokai,
contracted the disease and died when he was 49 years old.
RNS Photo
Blessed
Marianne Cope cared for Hansen’s Disease patients in Oahu and later
in Molokai. One of the 37 surviving patients attended her beatification.
