Leprosy in the Philippines

When the National Leprosy Control Program (NLCP) was established in 1986, there were 38,570 registered leprosy patients in the country. That number translated into a Prevalence Rate (PR) of 7.2 per 10,000 Filipinos.
By the end of 1998, with 7,005 registered patients and a PR of 0.90 per 10,000 population, leprosy was no longer considered as a public health problem by both the Department of Health (DOH) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
In 2004, the number was further reduced to 3,149 registered cases and a PR of 0.38 per 10,000 population.
From January 1 to December 31, 2004, a total of 2,120 new cases of leprosy were diagnosed and all were put under treatment with MDT.
The NLCP is under the supervision of the National Center for Disease Prevention and Control (NCDPC) of the DOH headed by Dr. Yolanda Oliveros; and the Infectious Disease Office headed by Dr. Jaime Lagahid. Dr. Leda Hernandez is Chief of the Division that handles leprosy while Dr. Francesca Gajete is the National Program Manager. - DOH Philippines
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Temple-Era DNA Reveals Oldest Case of Leprosy

Israel National News: (IsraelNN.com) The DNA of a man buried near Jerusalem's Old City in the first century Common Era reveals the earliest identifiable case of leprosy, according to researchers from Israel and North America. The burial shroud may also disprove the claim that the Shroud of Turin is from first-century Jerusalem.
The burial cave in which the remains were found, which is known as the Tomb of the Shroud, is located in the lower Hinnom Valley and is part of a first-century C.E. cemetery. The shrouded man, whose bones were dated by radiocarbon methods to 1-50 C.E., did not receive the customary secondary burial in an ossuary (small stone container for bones) common at the time. The entrance to the part of the tomb where this individual was buried was completely sealed with plaster.
The Hebrew University's Prof. Mark Spigelman, one of the leading researchers who studied the molecular evidence from the tomb, believes the isolation was due to the fact that the shrouded man suffered from leprosy and died of tuberculosis. The DNA of both diseases was found in his bones.
The excavation also found a clump of the shrouded man's hair, which had been ritually cut prior to his burial. These are both unique discoveries, as explained by Hebrew University spokespeople, because organic remains are hardly ever preserved in the Jerusalem area owing to high humidity levels in the ground.The evidence revealed by the remains indicate that tuberculosis and leprosy may have crossed social boundaries in the first-century C.E. Jerusalem. A number of clues - the size of the tomb, its location alongside a High Priest, the type of textiles used as shroud wrappings, and the clean state of the man's hair - suggest that the shrouded individual was a fairly affluent member of society in Jerusalem or a priest himself. Furthermore, according to Prof. Shimon Gibson of Hebrew University, the tomb would have faced directly toward the Jewish Temple of the time.
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
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Actor Terence Knapp will Present 'Life and Legacy of Father Damien'

Maui News: Dec. 9th: - In commemoration of the recent canonization of Father Damien De Veuster to sainthood, award-winning actor and scholar Terence Knapp will present "The Life and Legacy of Father Damien" at Kaimuki Public Library on Sunday, December 20 at 2 p.m. The free program will be conducted in the Adult Reading Room.

Of all the parts the veteran actor has played, Knapp identifies most with Father Damien. His role in "Damien," a dramatic monologue by Aldyth Morris, has defined the actor ever since he first presented it at Kennedy Theatre in 1976. Knapp will share information and his insights about Father Damien of Molokai, who was acknowledged by Pope Benedict XVI on October 11, 2009 at the Vatican as Hawaii's first saint.

The one-hour program is suitable for all ages. Contact the library two weeks in advance if a sign language interpreter or other special accommodation is needed. Kaimuki Public Library is located at 1041 Koko Head Avenue, corner of Koko Head and Harding Avenues. For more information, please call the Library at 733-8422.
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Newly Named Saint Celebrated in Park

National Parks Gallery Tuesday, Dec 1, 2009: - Saturday, November 7th, marked the formal close of months of celebratory activities surrounding the sainthood of Joseph Damien de Veuster at the Vatican in Rome on October 11th. In stunning contrast to the regal setting of the holy city, filled with ancient architectural and artistic wonders, Kalaupapa’s November 7th celebration was nestled within a backdrop of Molokai’s unparalleled natural splendor and steeped in a profound sense of place, history and aloha, bringing this long-awaited commemoration full circle back to the place where it all began.

“Today is about the Kalaupapa patient residents, and about helping our kupuna [elders] and their invited guests honor Saint Damien’s legacy as a ‘Servant of God and Servant of Humanity,’” explained superintendent Steve Prokop. Arriving by charter plane and via the historic Kalaupapa Pali (cliff) Trail, visitors began their descent onto Moloka`i’s renowned north shore peninsula with the rising sun. This remote Kalaupapa Peninsula is the place where Damien’s work first began attracting world-wide attention to the plight of local islanders forced into exile after having contracting leprosy (Hansen’s disease).

Prior to an outdoor mass on the historic St. Philomena Church grounds, visitors enjoyed refreshments and interpretive displays on recent preservation work completed on St. Philomena Church. Bishop Larry Silva and clergy presided over the service, which included contributions from residents Pauline Chow and Gloria Marks, St. John’s Vianney Choir and prominent leaders of Kalaupapa’s other religious and secular organizations.

Na Wahine o Kalawao delivered a moving hula performance to the piece entitled “Saint Damien” while the winds stirred suddenly and the crowd was showered with a gentle “Hawaiian blessing”. Mass was followed by a good old fashioned lu`au feast, live music and educational exhibits on Saint Damien and resident life at Kalaupapa. Sharing words on this joyful commemoration, Kalaupapa resident Kay Costales recited, “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad.”
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PAPAL MASS WITH INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION

VATICAN CITY, 1 DEC 2009 (VIS) - Early this morning Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in the Pauline Chapel of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, with members of the International Theological Commission. In his homily the Pope described the figure of the true theologian, who does not succumb to the temptation of using the measure of his own intelligence to fathom the mystery of God. In the study of Holy Scripture over the last two hundred years, he said, "there have been great specialists and ... masters of the faith who have penetrated into the details ... of the history of salvation. But they were unable to see the mystery in itself, the central nucleus: that Christ truly was the Son of God". Yet the history of the Church, the Holy Father went on, contains a long list of men and women who were capable of humility and of reaching the truth. Among these he mentioned St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Damian de Veuster, "little people who were also wise", models from which to draw inspiration because "they were touched in the depths of their heart". "Following His Resurrection the Lord touched the heart of Saul on the road to Damascus", the Pope concluded, "Saul, who was one of the wise who could not see. ... He became blind and thus truly came to see. The great man becomes a small man and so sees the ... wisdom of God, ... which is greater than all human wisdom".
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New Coin Wows Hawaii

World Coin News Nov. 24th: It is unusual to see a coin show with lines at the door where coin collectors are in the minority. Yet over the course of three days from Oct. 30-Nov. 1 at the Hawaii State Numismatic Association’s annual convention, this was sometimes the norm, according to a report from The Coin & Currency Institute, Inc. To the surprise of many in attendance, the hubbub was caused by a silver 20-euro coin from Belgium with such a uniquely Hawaiian twist that it made headlines in newspaper, television, radio and online reports.

The coin was issued by Belgium to commemorate the canonization of Father Damien, now known as St. Damien of Molokai, by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 11. Although he was born in Belgium, St. Damien, also known as the “leper priest,” is as revered in Hawaii as in his native land. His work of caring for thousands of sick people at the Kalawao settlement on Molokai made him a Hawaiian legend. He died in 1889 of Hansen’s disease (leprosy) while giving this care.

The coin, which was to arrive in Honolulu in time for the show, was not delivered until Nov. 2 due to a delay in Customs processing. While that caused some disappointment, buyers were undeterred, according to the report. When Hawaii’s largest newspaper, the Honolulu Advertiser ran a headline saying “Coin Show, No Show,” in its Nov. 1 issue, it made the point that, “St. Damien’s foot is fleeter than international mail service” – a reference to the fact that this was “nearly three weeks after Bishop Larry Silva hand-delivered a relic of Damien’s heel back to Hawaii.”

The result of the story was that it “attracted even more folks,” said Vince Vento of Alii Coin & Currency, LLC, who is distributing the coin in Hawaii for the Royal Belgian Mint, By the close of the show Sunday, Vento had pages of reservations for the coins – so many that even after limiting buyers to just one coin per person, the initial shipment of several hundred was oversold and the Royal Belgian Mint was preparing a second shipment. Coin and paper money dealer Jim Simek said of the crowds that, “there were times where 20 to 30 people were lined up at Vento’s table,” and that it was “unlike anything I’ve seen at a coin show in a long time for a non-American coin.”

Todd Kuwaye, a local collector of Morgan dollars and U.S. gold coins, would have gone to the Honolulu show anyway but said that he went early, “just to get the coin.” He said it was “the first European coin I ever bought.” The coin is 37 mm in diameter and contains 22.85 grams of sterling silver. It is struck in mirror-finish proof quality. Mintage is limited to just 15,000 coins worldwide and 10 percent of the coins available for export have already been sold in Hawaii. Issue price is U.S. $75, or 49 euros. The Finance Ministry of Belgium is donating the net profits from the sale of the coin to the Damien Actie (Action), a non-governmental organization established in 1964 that is mainly concerned with people suffering from Hansen’s disease and tuberculosis.

For more information, contact North American distributor The Coin & Currency Institute, Inc. by mail at P.O. Box 1057, Clifton, NJ 07014; by phone at (800) 421-1866; by fax at (973) 471-1441; or by e-mail at mail@coin-currency.com. Shipping and handling is $5.50 per order. Coins are available in Hawaii from Alii Coin & Currency. The company can be reached by phone at (808) 236-2646. The Royal Belgian Mint may be contacted by e-mail at mrb.kmb@minfin.fed.be
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Over 134,000 infected with leprosy in 2008-09

New Delhi, India: Nov. 24th: There were over 134,000 new leprosy infections in 2008-09 but the number is slowly decreasing in India, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said in the Rajya Sabha Tuesday.

"Leprosy related cases are not rising in the country. On the contrary, the reported cases are declining over the years," Azad said adding that his ministry has taken several steps to reduce the burden of this ailment. According to health ministry data, 260,000 leprosy cases were reported in the country during 2004-05. The year after the cases sharply dropped to 161,457 but there after the decline is relatively slow. While 139,252 cases were reported in 2006-07, in 2007-08, the number of new infections was 137,685.

In the last financial year (2008-09), 134,181 new people were infected by the disease which causes deformity in limbs and renders one handicapped. The minister said that under the National Leprosy Eradication Programme, several steps have been taken to treat and rehabilitate these patients. He said all primary health care centres and government dispensaries have been asked to provide medicine free of cost to them.

"(Government is) providing funds for non-constructive surgery services to leprosy affected persons free of cost for disability correction," Azad added.

Medical Blog: December 1st: - On 25 January 2010, an appeal will be made to the world to end the stigma which blights the lives of millions of people affected by leprosy. Launching from Mumbai in India, a country where the leprosy burden is the largest in the world and where 134,000 new cases of the disease were detected last year, the Global Appeal 2010 will be endorsed by figures from the corporate world willing to demonstrate their concern for this denial of human rights.
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Oct. 10th - Basilica sopra Minerva

On Oct 10th, the evening before the Canosation of Fr. Damien, his religious family and the pilgrims who had travelled to Rome, came together for a Prayer/Adoraton Service. The video shows highlights of the service. For the best Internet Blog on St. Damien see www.leperpriest.blogspot.com

Oct. 12th - Damien Canonisation - Basilica of St John Lateran

On Monday Oct. 12th. the day following the Canonisation of Fr. Damien de Veuster in Rome, the Damien pilgrims gathered at the Bascilica of St. John Lateran for a Mass of Thanksgiving led by Cardinal Danniels of Malines/Brussells.

Inspirational Video

Two clips from this new inspiritional video using the words of Damien and reflecting on what motivated Damien in giving of himself for the sake of his lepers.

The 46 min video is available at a cost of $30/€21 from eamonmoz@gmail.com

Louvain Celebrations

Louvain, Belgium October 17th. - With the announcement of the date of Damien's canonization we began to organize the celebration of this great event in the city of Louvain. At the beginning, the idea began to circulate of the Damien Today project. The announcement of the Damien Year was one of the first initiatives. Elsewhere, the dean’s office in Louvain and the City council, also started talking about it. Along the way the government of the Flemish province of Brabant joined in as well. There were different dates and ideas, but in a joint meeting between the three parties, it was agreed that there would be a single celebration on October 17th. For the Congregation this date was ideal because brothers and sisters who were in Europe on the occasion of the canonization could be present. Meetings were arranged, everything was arrnged to the last detail, e-mails from the dean’s office did not stop arriving. Plan B was talked about in case of rain. The city government was fully at the disposal of the organizers of the celebration. The preparation was so thorough that nothing could go wrong.
The city was decked out in the days before the celebration with flags and banners with the phrase: DAMIAN INSPIRES. Photos of Damian, particularly those relating to his remains being brought to Belgium were exhibited at strategic points. Louvain became DAMIAN CITY.
The 17th arrived. Movement was already felt from days before in the Damien Centre with the arrival of vestments for the celebrants, about 80 including 30 Picpus Fathers and international guests. Sometimes we looked with some concern at the sky. A little rain and a cloud make us consider Plan B. But in the end the weather was nice, then came the event.
With everything ready at half past four in the afternoon the procession started to take us from the Damien Center to the church of San Pedro, in the heart of Louvain. A large photo of Damian was carried on the shoulders of a group of scouts, two brass bands, a group carried the Tremolo flags, a group from French Polynesia, and a long line of priests, among others, formed the procession that was intended to recall the journey that the remains of Damian took in Louvain in 1936. The Vicar General of Malines-Brussels Archdiocese presided over the celebration, accompanied by the Superior General of the Congregation and the Dean of Louvain.
Once in the church of St. Peter, full to the brim, the first part of the celebration began, a liturgy of the word and the explanation of why we were there: in 1936, Damien's body spent the night in that church, where tribute was made before being transferred to the Church of the Picpus Fathers. The procession resumed its journey, going through the streets of Brussels, towards the church of St. James, where there is a statue dedicated to Fr. Damian, the first in Belgium. There the mayor of the city paid tribute to Damien, apologizing because maybe it was not Damian's will to be away from his brothers and sisters in Molokai, but the fact of having Damian in the city, reminded the mayor, is a wakeup call for us to remember and live the values that he lived, especially tolerance and giving to the marginalized. Some children also read their stories and impressions about Damian.
After the wreath was placed, the procession moved on again, in the direction of Damien Square, opposite the chapel of San Antonio, Church of the Picpus Fathers in Louvain, where Damien's tomb is. Along the way, perhaps it was not the same crowd as in 1936, but the faces present in the audience were very diverse and also their reactions. At the entrance to the Square, the priests went to a nearby parking lot to make way for the people who came behind the group, far more than expected.
At seven o'clock in the afternoon the third part of the celebration began. A word of welcome by Father Francis Gorissen, provincial of the Picpus Fathers in Flanders, put the celebration in context: the church in this square witnessed the entry of young Joseph De Veuster to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts in 1859. He must have prayed in it many times. And from this place brother Damian left for the missions in the Sandwich Islands in 1863, stopping in Paris and Bremen. At the celebration, excerpts of letters from Damien were read in French, Netherlands and English, languages in which he communicated with his superiors, his family and friends. A trumpet, a hammer, a bottle of medicine, a cross and a coat reminded us how Damien gave back lost joy, built houses and coffins, healed the sick, spoke of God's love for the small and unprotected and was a sign of welcome for the lepers of Molokai. As a gesture of solidarity, the collection of the celebration was given for a project of the SS.CC. sisters in Mozambique that targets vulnerable people affected by AIDS. Despite the intense cold, more than 2000 people stayed until the final conclusion. The Superior-General thanked the city and the local church for the celebration; He did this in Spanish with the efficient translation of Frits Gorissen. Subsequently, the Superior General, gave her thanks as well. A word from them in Flemish would not have been a bad thing.
Then everyone was invited to go to visit the final resting place of St. Joseph Damien De Veuster, the official name of Father Damien for us all. A small reception at City Hall ended the day.
Juan Carlos Tinjaca, ss.cc.
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Celebrations at Tremeloo

Tremeloo, Belgium: October 4th: - The village of Tremeloo had the honour of opening the festivities in Belgium around the canonization of Father Damien.

On Sunday, October 4th I was among two thousand other "fans" of Damien in a large tent near the birthplace to celebrate the Eucharist which was presided by Cardinal Danneels in the presence of bishop Silva from Honolulu and Mgr. Berloco, the apostolic nuncio. With King Albert II and Queen Paola, there were many political figures of our country, but also many foreigners, including a group of 400 Hawaiians who gave colour to the assembly with their costumes, songs and “lei” that they offered to the priests and the royal couple. The Cardinal in his homily referred to the birthplace of the new Saint. but especially insisted on the fact of what this Saint has given to us. “What made Damien a saint? questioned the cardinal, “people? No, it was God did it”. This primate of the Belgian Church invited us to be thankful and appealed to the people that we must learn to pray and not only admire this heroic man, soon to be “Saint Damien of Molokai”. The Cardinal finally addressed the Hawaiians by thanking them. “Because”, he said “we gave birth to Damien so that he could come home. But you have given us as a Saint”.

This celebration described by newspapers as “a wonderful event” ended by an interview with Mad. Toguchi showing her gratitude to God who, through Damien wanted to be concerned about a "modest woman" such as she is. The miraculously cured woman told me later that she gave thanks for having known Father Damien SS.CC. thanks to the sisters present during her youth in her school in Hawaii.

Following this celebration the cardinal inaugurated a new statue of Damien in the garden of his birthplace. During the afternoon we participated in a bringing to mind the various stages in the life of Damien expressed through songs, dances and stories. The day continued with festivities, which included the whole village where our SS.CC. sisters and brothers discovered the Belgian style of popular festivity.
Sr. Hilde Reynders, ss.cc.
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Students on Plgrimage

Louvain, Belgium: Oct. 1st: - On Thursday, October 1st about 1400 students and 180 teachers from the school “Damiaaninstituut” Aarschot set off to officially hand over to the Picpus fathers boxes which they had made to hold the relics of Father Damien.

After travelling the 20 km between Louvain and Aarschot, the young people all dressed in T-shirts decorated with a large picture of Father Damien, crossed the city on foot to reach Damien Square opposite the Chapel of St. Anthony. This journey symbolized the distance between Tremolo and Molokai.

Fr Frits Gorissen, provincial of the brothers in Flanders, and several brothers welcomed the young people and expressed his joy and gratitude for this collaboration for the canonization of Damien. Before blessing the two boxes Father Frits explained to the young people that a relic serves as a sign to keep alive the memory and spirit of the life of the saint who is venerated. Within this festive environment the assembly listened with great respect. Several young people had the opportunity to say before the cameras and the many journalists what Father Damien meant in their own lives. The director of Damiaaninstituut thanked all the students and teachers and explained how his school will continue in concrete ways this year which had given them a true patron Saint of the school.

At the end of this celebration, before the procession set off again to Aarschot, someone dressed as Father Damien made a final speech to young people. “Being a saint or being the greatest Belgian was of little interest to Damien”, he said. “The only thing that Damien asks is that you continue his work”.

Challenged by these words, the 1400 young people paid their respects once again to the relics of their future patron Saint future. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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A Royal Salute to a Saint

St. Damien’s relic before his statue at the State capitol. His bond with the alii was celebrated as his relic is carried to the state Capitol and Iolani Palace. CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM

Honolulu Star Bulletin: Nov 02, 2009 - The peasant pastor received a posthumous royal welcome of banners, processions and pageantry yesterday in a "Tribute to St. Damien" that brought hundreds of people to the Iolani Palace grounds. St. Damien De Veuster's endearing bond with Hawaiian alii was remembered as he was honored for his 16 years of compassionate service in Kalaupapa, Molokai, where leprosy patients, most of whom were Hawaiians, were isolated. He died of the disease in 1889 after 16 years in the remote settlement. His open-hearted charity to people of all cultures and faiths won applause by speakers who included a Belgian diplomat, local elected officials and interfaith religious leaders.

About 800 people gathered at the public celebration, which followed two weeks of religious observances centered on a relic of the man who was declared a saint last month. Members of Catholic organizations brought the koa box containing Damien's heel bone three blocks from Our Lady of Peace Cathedral. They bore it on a koa platform shaped like an outrigger canoe, symbolic of the priest's travels as a pastor on Oahu, Hawaii and Molokai. The parade was met at the palace gate by chanters Puakeala Mann and Ikaika Bantolina, who gave welcoming oli. The procession included feather-caped members of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, escorted by the Royal Guard of the Hawaii National Guard. Other Hawaiian societies wearing their colors lined the driveway to the palace, which was draped in bunting, Hawaiian flags and a large banner with the Kalaukaua crest. "It was from the palace that Damien received royal support for his efforts," said Abigail Kawananakoa, who traces her lineage to the last monarchs. She recalled correspondence between Damien and Queen Kapiolani and then-Princess Liliuokalani, who "saw the grim sadness and devastation visited on the people there." Damien's letters detailed clothing and other supplies he sought for patients, and the alii responded, she said.

Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels and Hawaii Catholic Bishop Larry Silva joined Kawananakoa on the bandstand to watch the proceedings, which included hula, music and a parade of speakers. Jan Matthysen, Belgium's ambassador to the United States, told the crowd, "We Belgians cherish our connection to Hawaii" -- a connection rooted in Damien. "It was interesting to see how strongly Father Damien is still in the hearts of the people. It's wonderful to see," Matthysen said at the end of the festivities. "In every way, by every definition, St. Damien is a hero," said House Speaker Calvin Say. He "will be an illustrious, permanent humanitarian in the pages of history ... cherished as Hawaii's most benevolent patron of the sick and needy."

Scott Whiting of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recalled Damien's writings that mentioned Mormon elder Jonathan Napela as his "yoke mate" in caring for the afflicted people. "He fostered a true spirit of community between faiths and cultures and did so in the most trying of circumstances," Whiting said. "In honoring one man, we also honor the thousands of people -- patients and workers -- who, despite disease and despair, reached out to one another in love and compassion," said the Rev. Charles Buck, Hawaii conference minister of the United Church of Christ. "In celebrating Father Damien, we celebrate the strength and resiliency of the human spirit, seen over and over in the last 150 years, by patients who triumphed over hardship and hopelessness ... all the unnamed saints of Kalau-papa who show us that even in horrible times, humans will do the right thing. "Let us walk in their footsteps by offering to each other the persistent hope and insistent encouragement to live fully and love courageously," Buck said.

The relic was escorted into the palace throne room by Kawananakoa, Silva and Danneels for a brief stop not open to the public. Mann chanted prayers as it was taken to the statues of Queen Liliuokalani and Damien on state Capitol grounds. Catholic relic-bearers led the dwindling procession back to the cathedral, where more than 1,000 people had started the day's festivities at a noon Mass celebrating All Saints' Day. The relic is now secured in a shrine inside the cathedral, where services to venerate the relic will be held daily through Friday.
By Mary Adamski


Hawaiian NEWS ABC KITV - Watch Video of Celebration >>>>>>

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Hawaii Celebrates New Saint - Return of Relic

Bishop Clarence "Larry" Silva kissed the reliquary holding the relic of St. Damien yesterday after it arrived at Honolulu Airport. Silva placed the relic into a koa carrying case which was being supported by Randy King and the Revs. Alexander and Lane Akiona.
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Honolulu, Hawaii: Oct. 31st. —Hula, chants and prayer will greet a heel bone of one of the Catholic Church's newest saints when it arrives in Honolulu this weekend. The celebrations are the culmination of weeks of ceremonies and celebrations marking the Vatican's canonization of Belgian-born Joseph de Veuster, or Father Damien, in Rome earlier this month.

Damien has long been a saint to the people of Hawaii for caring for exiled leprosy patients in the mid-1800s when no one else would, and then contracting and dying of the disfiguring disease himself. The priest's appeal spreads beyond the Catholic Church. Gov. Linda Lingle, who is Jewish, said Damien showed what it was like to do good without regard for personal gain. "I think he serves as an example and role model to everyone of what is a life of selfless service," Lingle said. "It means a lot that people recognize that he was a saint and he was here in our state. He lived among us and died among us."

Church officials have been carrying the heel bone relic around the state for the past few weeks. The bone reached Kalaupapa on Saturday, where it was welcomed by about a dozen patients still living on the remote peninsula. The state of Hawaii stopped forcibly exiling patients to Kalaupapa in 1969. On Sunday, church officials are due to take the relic to mass at the Honolulu cathedral where Damien was ordained in 1864. They'll then take the bone, carefully protected in a wooden box, to Iolani Palace where Hawaiian royalty who supported Damien's Kalaupapa efforts once lived. Chanters are due to deliver welcoming words and dancers are to perform hula. Representatives from different religious faiths, including the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ and the Mormon church, are expected to speak.

Catholics say the relic - which will be permanently held at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu - will connect worshippers to Damien. "It's sort of a reminder that Damien was a real person, that he's with us," said Patrick Downes, a Honolulu diocese spokesman. "It's akin to visiting someone's grave, or having a lock of hair, or some kind of reminder, a physical reminder, a connection to the actual person." The Rev. Lane Akiona, a member of the Sacred Hearts congregation that Damien belonged to, said the relic will push people to follow in his path. "It challenges us as members of his order to be as courageous as he was, even when it means that we will be alone," said Lane, who is the pastor of St. Augustine Church in Waikiki.

Damien's body is interred in a marble tomb in Belgium, where it was taken in 1936 after being exhumed from his original Kalaupapa grave. Another relic, Damien's right hand, was returned to Hawaii and reburied in Kalaupapa after he was beatified in 1995. Church leaders picked Damien's right hand to bring back because it's the one he used to bless, care for, and bandage the sick. The bone's tour stopped at many of the spots critical to Damien's time in Hawaii. It spent about a week circling the Big Island, where Damien lived for nine years before going to Kalaupapa. On Maui, the relic was taken to St. Anthony's Church in Wailuku, where Damien heard Kalaupapa's patients needed help and where he volunteered for the mission.

Damien arrived at Kalaupapa in 1873, the year the Hawaiian Kingdom began strictly enforcing its isolation policy and started exiling patients there in large numbers. The infrastructure to care for patients at the new leprosy settlement was virtually nonexistent. There were no homes to live in and no doctors to treat the sick. There was no dock, so ships delivering new groups of people for quarantine would dump patients in the water and force them to swim ashore. The patients, many profoundly ill, had to forage for meals and sleep out in the open. Doctors, when they did come, would refuse to touch the patients. In contrast, Damien built homes, planted trees, and bandaged patient wounds. He aggressively lobbied the Hawaiian government and the Catholic Church for more help, raising public awareness about their plight.

"What Father Damien found there was a place where people had lost their individual dignity and their sense of living in a decent society because of the way they were treated and how they were left there," Lingle said. "He really brought new life to the people. He brought them a sense of hope, of faith, of purpose." Damien was diagnosed with leprosy 12 years after he arrived. He died four years later, in 1889. By Audrey McAvoy Associated Press Writer
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St. Damien - Artobiography

Art is no more than a collection of pigments arranged as the artist finds useful to convey his intentions. Art at the lower end simply conveys feelings, a girl on a beach or a tranquil river. But to me, at the higher end, art must aspire to do more. The best art has always informed and challenged. Some of the greatest shapers of our societies in the past have been artists who spoke out through their medium. Artobiography is the style I have developed to do precisely that, a form of mixed media where documents and words are layered onto a canvas and then sealed before over painting with oils.
When asked to create an art piece on Damien, I immediately decided that the piece should not be painted with soft hues, for there is nothing soft about leprosy, Molokai or the life Fr Damien lived. So the paint strokes were often delivered with edges and hard areas which do not try to gently mix with their surroundings. For that reason I chose to paint the older weathered Fr Damien rather than the softer images of him as a younger man. Fr Damien had hard edges as the letter penned by Robert Louis Stevenson indicates and as an artist I have not tried to romanticise him but rather to present him as the raw hard edged hero and Saint he was. Of course no man lives as an Island and the story of words behind the face seek to articulate the larger story. Sections of Robert Louis Stevenson’s letter are included, pieces about Fr Damien, the Island of Molokai and then other spurious pieces I put together regarding the disease of leprosy, its treatment and a call for us to de-stigmatise leprosy now.
Leprosy is easily curable today and no one should die of it, yet many do. The problem with leprosy is that it is located in underdeveloped countries. If the occasional celebrity were to contract leprosy its profile would be raised and soon the funding would be assigned to eliminate it altogether. But worst of all is the attached stigma it carries. This ignoble attachment has now been assigned to many suffering from AIDS, as though the disease were not enough. This painting speaks of bigotry, hate and ignorance and as an artist I am encouraged that this latest humanitarian effort by Don Mullan will help bring relief to those suffering from AIDS in South Africa through the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation. Too often HIV/AIDS sufferers experience the very same bigotry, hatred, ignorance and ostracisation that Fr Damien and the lepers of Molokai experienced. Just as the message in this painting is about de-stigmatising leprosy – so for AIDS today. Let us de-stigmatise AIDS now. A variety of conventional and artobiographical art pieces may be viewed on the artist’s website www.artobiography.co.uk
Rev. Keith Drury
Limited edition of 100 prints available. Each signed and numbered by the artist.
Size A2 (490 x 594 mm)
Price: Framed - £245
Unframed - £195 (pp included)
For postal reasons it is best shipped unframed.
Purchase online or contact artist directly:
www.artobiography.co.uk
keith@artobiography.co.uk
Mobile: 44 (0) 78 6633 9920
Tel: 44 (0) 28 91811191
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Damien Welcomed ‘Home’

A koa case secures a 15-inch-long wooden reliquary that holds a tin box with a bone from Damien’s heel.
Relic arrival ‘unbelievable,’ emotional experience.
The Maui News: KIHEI - Maryanne Majszak was in tears after venerating the St. Damien relic at her parish at St. Theresa Church in Kihei. "I could feel him," she said, unable to say more as her eyes watered up. Patty Holbrook was also in tears at Saturday's relic veneration, although she had yet to pay respects to Hawaii's first saint. "This is unbelievable," said Holbrook, visibly moved. "What Damien did was the life of much more of a saint. . . . He inspired all of us to serve, no matter who we are." Following the Oct. 11 canonization of Father Damien de Veuster to St. Damien, a relic featuring a bone from his right heel has been making the trek from Rome to the U.S. Mainland to the Big Island and now to Maui.

Residents and visitors, Catholic and not, connected with Damien on Saturday, calling him an inspiration of faith and service to mankind. Known to much of the world as Damien the leper, the Sacred Hearts priest worked on Molokai for 16 years during the late 1800s, caring for Hansen's disease patients who were forced to live there. Damien's canonization comes 120 years after his death. He contracted Hansen's disease himself. Maui residents welcomed the Damien relic on the first of a three-day visit around the island with songs, dance, prayers, adoration and veneration. The saint's relic has been secured in a small tin box housed in a 15-inch-long wooden reliquary that travels in a larger koa case.

People at Saturday's relic visitations approached the case in different ways, some genuflecting, others bowing, some touching the case briefly and others placing their palms on it as they prayed in silence. The relic's first stop Saturday was at St. Theresa Church where the parish pastor, the Rev. Monsignor Terry Watanabe, led the congregation in applauding the Damien relic arrival. "We have welcomed Damien back home," Watanabe said. "Elevating Father Damien to Saint Damien is not meant merely to honor a long dead priest," read a booklet provided at St. Theresa for Saturday's Mass. "It is meant to hold him up as an example: To remind us that building a better world is neither beyond our abilities nor the sole province of governmental 'officialdom.' "We are not all meant to be saints. But we are meant to find Damien's virtues in ourselves and put them to work."

Cody Chai, 16, and Siosi Kolo, 14, were designated the official relic carriers for the Damien relic at St. Theresa. "It's a big responsibility," Chai said shortly before the relic was welcomed. "It's a blessing what Damien did." Kolo said Damien's life is an inspiration for young and old alike. "I think it's the best thing someone could do . . . serve others," he said. Nearly 300 people showed up at St. Theresa, and more than 300 participated in four hours of prayers and singing at Christ the King Church in Kahului. Keeping careful watch over the relic are men from a Catholic group called the Knights of Columbus. The color guard, dressed in white tuxedos, red-and-black capes and black hats with white or purple feathers, processed in and out of the churches with the relic. "We're basically keeping Saint Damien company," explained Ray Hart of the Knights of Columbus Fourth Degree Assembly Color Guard 2290. He and Larry Aberill have assumed the responsibility of escorting the relic throughout its three-day visit on Maui, including an overnight vigil in Hana. Hart, a Catholic convert, said he "adjusted to the thought" of escorting a part of a saint's body. "If there was any time I needed a saint, this is it," he said.

Early Christians started the tradition of relics as they gathered to worship in the catacombs near the graves of Christian martyrs. The tradition developed into the practice of burying a saint's bones in or under a church's altar. Damien's relic will eventually make its way Nov. 1 to the Catheral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu, where Damien was first ordained as a priest. The relic will be placed in a permanent glass case to the right of the church altar. All relic visitations and today's Maui Vicariate celebration beginning at 3:30 p.m. at the War Memorial Gymnasium are free and open to the public. A dinner for those who have presale tickets takes place from 3:30 to 5 p.m.

The Damien relic is being honored by people of many faiths and cultures. The Tongan community, for example, had the assistance of Aisea Lolesio Paunga, a 72-year-old choir director visiting from Tonga. Paunga said he was "impressed" by how well the Tongan choir from St. Theresa sang the song he had written to honor Damien. The Tongan Catholic community will sing the same song at today's celebration at the War Memorial Gymnasium. "It's amazing for me to have a senior director like him be here," said Loma Falekaono, the Tongan choir director at St. Theresa. "It's a good thing that we're learning from him." Another visitor at St. Theresa was Sathish Thurai, a native of India now living in San Jose, Calif. Thurai said he had never heard of St. Damien, but as a Catholic he was familiar with how much saints mean to the church. "Saints are a part of our lives," he said. "We always pray to saints to intercede in our lives." Thurai described Saturday's veneration as "awesome." St. Theresa parishioner, Stacy Chai, couldn't agree more. "I think it's really neat. It's an actual saint, and he's here."
By Claudine San Nicolas who can be reached at claudine@ mauinews.com.
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'Leper priest' named among five new saints

President Obama hails canonisation of Fr Damien by pontiff
Irish Independant: Monday October 12 2009: Pope Benedict created five new saints yesterday, including Belgian priest Damien who worked and died among Hawaiian lepers, earning the admiration of President Barack Obama who sent a message hailing Damien's canonisation. The US president was born in Hawaii, where Damien worked in the leper colony of Molokai, caught leprosy and died in 1889. Mr Obama said in a statement that Damien had "a special place in the hearts of Hawaiians".

"I recall many stories from my youth about his tireless work there to care for those suffering from leprosy who had been cast out," Mr Obama said, adding that the priest had "challenged the stigmatising effects" of the disfiguring disease. "In our own time as millions around the world suffer from disease, especially the pandemic of HIV/AIDS, we should draw on the example of Fr Damien's resolve in answering the urgent call to heal and care for the sick," the president said.

Born Jozef De Veuster, Damien went to Hawaii when he was 23, and 10 years later began work among the lepers, "not without fear and repugnance" at first, the pope said. He got ill and was "a leper among the lepers" for the last four years of his life. The life of "Damien of Molokai" is well known to young US Catholics but his appeal stretches to members of the broader Christian community such as Mr Obama, who was baptised as an adult in the Trinity United Church of Christ. There is even a statue of Damien in the US Congress.

Belgium's King Albert and Queen Paola attended the ceremony in St Peter's, as did Polish President Lech Kaczynski, French premier Francois Fillon and Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos to celebrate new saints from their respective countries.

The pope also canonised Zygmunt Szczesny Felinski, archbishop of Warsaw when Poland rebelled against annexation by imperial Russia in 1863. Exiled to Siberia for 20 years by the czar, he was "a shining example for all the Church", the pope said. Dominican friar Francisco Coll Guitart, one of two Spaniards created a saint, preached in Catalonia in the 19th century and "reached the hearts of others because he transmitted what he himself lived with passion, which burned in his heart", said the pontiff.

The other is Brother Rafael Arnaiz Baron who became a Trappist monk and died at the age of 27 in 1938. France's new saint is Jeanne Jugan, venerated as Marie de la Croix. She worked with the poor and elderly, shedding all material possessions to become "a poor person among the poor" until her death in 1879.

by STEPHEN BROWN Irish Independent
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Hawaii's Father Damien Canonized

Damien Banner hanging from St. Peters Bascilica
VATICAN CITY — A decades-long push to see one of Hawaii's heroes become a saint was finalized here Sunday when Pope Benedict XVI canonized five people, including Father Damien, a 19th-century priest whose work with leprosy patients on a Hawaiian island was hailed by President Obama as an inspiration to those helping AIDS sufferers today.

More than 550 islanders made the 12,000-mile trek to Rome for the canonization of Hawaii's first saint, which comes 120 years after Father Damien's death in Kalaupapa from leprosy, now known as Hansen's disease.

The basilica's 20,000-seat capacity was filled quickly and thousands of others stood in the square, where they watched the Canon of Saints of the Roman Catholic Church ceremony on TV screens.

Among attendees were 11 of the remaining Hawaii residents sent to Kalaupapa after being diagnosed with the disease at a time when the state still quarantined those with leprosy.

"To have given his life for what he believed in. Oh, it makes me feel small," said Kalaupapa resident Elroy Makia Malo.

Hawaii resident Audrey Toguchi, 80, a retired teacher whose recovery from lung cancer a decade ago was called miraculous by the Vatican, also attended.

She had prayed to Belgium-born Jozef De Veuster, more commonly known as Father Damien, who died in 1889 after contracting leprosy while working with patients living in isolation on Molokai island.

Toguchi and her doctor, Walter Chang, joined a procession of faithful bringing relics of the new saints to Benedict at the central altar of the basilica.

Father Damien is the ninth person who has been elevated to sainthood for good works on what is now American soil.

The Rev. Christopher Keahi, the provincial superior for the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts in the Islands, said the canonization cause took hard work and prayer.

"I never dreamed Damien would be canonized in my lifetime. He is like an idol for me," said Sister Roselani Enomoto of Honolulu.

Obama said he learned of Father Damien while growing up in Hawaii. "As millions around the world suffer from disease, especially the pandemic of HIV/AIDS, we should draw on the example of Father Damien's resolve in answering the urgent call to heal and care for the sick," Obama said in a statement.

In Hawaii, residents of Kalaupapa, where Father Damien ministered to the sick, walked in a heavy mist, carrying a banner bearing his likeness, and celebrated a Mass in his honor.

And at Honolulu's Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, Mildred Jacoby, 77, of Kapolei, said it was "like heaven" to attend Mass in the church where Father Damien was first ordained.
By Mary Vorsino The Honolulu Advertiser
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Obama says St. Damien gave voice to voiceless, dignity to the sick

Pope Benedict XVI canonized five new saints Sunday in a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City (Getty Image).
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- President Barack Obama expressed his "deep admiration" for St. Damien de Veuster and offered his prayers for all those celebrating the priest's "extraordinary life and witness." He issued the statement Oct. 9, two days before the pope canonized the Belgian priest and four others at the Vatican.

“I wish to express my deep admiration for the life of Blessed Damien de Veuster, who will be canonized on Sunday by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. I also want to convey my best wishes to the Kingdom of Belgium and its people, who are proud to count Fr. Damien among their great citizens.

Fr. Damien has also earned a special place in the hearts of Hawaiians. I recall many stories from my youth about his tireless work there to care for those suffering from leprosy who had been cast out. Following in the steps of Jesus’ ministry to the lepers, Fr. Damien challenged the stigmatizing effects of disease, giving voice to the voiceless and ultimately sacrificing his own life to bring dignity to so many.

In our own time as millions around the world suffer from disease, especially the pandemic of HIV/AIDS, we should draw on the example of Fr. Damien’s resolve in answering the urgent call to heal and care for the sick.

I offer my prayers as people of all faiths join the Holy Father and millions of Catholics around the world in celebrating Fr. Damien’s extraordinary life and witness.”
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Canonisation Here I Come

Dublin: Mozlink leaves for the canonisation in Rome tomorrow Saturday. Will be back on Tuesday to bring you the latest updates if I am unable to find the time to do some uploading while I am away. Remember to pray these days of canonisation, for the people today who are suffering in numerous Molokai's throughout the world.
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Fr. Damien - First Hawaiian Saint

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St. Damien: Find Your Own Molokai

America Magazine: The church will soon have a new saint. This Sunday, Oct. 11, Pope Benedict XVI will canonize St. Damien of Molokai (or St. Damien de Veuster). He may fairly be called--with not too much of a stretch--an "American" saint, an immigrant who came to work on what came to be American territory. In this way he is something like Mother Cabrini, the Italian-born immigrant who came to work with the poor in New York. And yes, I know Hawaii wasn't a state then, indeed an entirely separate nation (as one commenter pointed out). Nonetheless, we're happy to include St. Damien in our family of saints in the States. After all, both Portugal and Italy celebrate St. Anthony of Padua.

This comment from the Maui News caught my eye today: "You read about his story and realize he is very incredible. It took a man from way far away to more or less bring the Hawaiian people together and . . . bring all the people together to understand our cause and care for the people who suffered." That's Clarence Kahilihiwa, the son of parents who suffered from Hansen's disease. Mr. Kahilihiwa has a great love for the church's newest saint.

But even those who know only the barest scraps of his story understand that the life of Father Damien was an extraordinary one. And that raises a problematic question: What can the life of Father Damien (like "Blessed Teresa" it will take some time to begin to refer to him as "Saint Damien") say to us today?

Very few of us are going to enter religious order, leave our native country and work with the very ill and very forgotten. "Lepers," a detested term for those suffering from Hansen's disease, were reviled even in Biblical times: many of Jesus's most well-known miracles are those healing people suffering from "leprosy," though scholars tell us that this could refer to any variety of skin diseases. In Damien's day those suffering from Hansen's disease were banished to the island of Molokai. It was there that the Belgian-born Joseph de Veuster (he took the religious name Damien after joining the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary) went in 1873. Just a few years before, in 1864, Damien arrived in Hawaii and was ordained a priest in the cathedral in Honolulu. As is well known, Damien spent the rest of his brief life in Molokai ministering to the sick and marginalized until he too contracted Hansen's disease. He died in 1889, at the age of 49.

In a (perhaps unintentional) snub of the peoples of the island, Damien's body was exhumed and sent back to Belgium, where it is buried in a crypt in Louvain in 1936. Only recently, in 1995, did Pope John Paul II, on the occasion of Damien's beatification, send bones from his right hand back to Molokai to be reburied in his original grave. The final step to Damien's canonization came with the miraculous cure of a retired teacher in Hawaii named Audrey Toguchi.

The story of Damien, like the lives of so many saints, can seem while noble, largely irrelevant to our own. Yet by reading the saints' lives carefully one can always find profound resonances with the lives of everyday believers. What parent is not called upon to minister to a child when he or she falls ill, even at the risk of contracting an illness? Who among us is not called to stand with the outcast, with those whom polite society shuns either literally or metaphorically? Who is not called to do works of charity and love that may remain utterly hidden from the rest of the world. Think of the husband or wife caring for the spouse with Alzheimer's. Is this not a hidden act of charity? Think of the parent caring for a child with a cancer or an incurable illness. Even if the parent does not contract the illness, is this not a heroic deed? Damien is not as far from us as many would think.

When the faithful used to visit Mother Teresa and ask to work alongside her in Calcutta, she would sometimes say, "Find your own Calcutta." That is, care for the poor where you are. Perhaps the story of St. Damien says to us, "Find your own Molokai."
By James Martin, SJ
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Fr. Damien's FamilyToday

Meet members of Fr. Damien's family today in Belgium. KITV Hawaii visit Fr. Damien's hometown of Tremeloo, Belgium. Click >>>>>>>>>>>HERE to view video.
Click >>>>>>>>>>>HERE to view a video of the celebrations in Damiens home town.

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New Website on St. Damien

The Flemish Belgium Province of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts have a new website on St Damien. Click >>>>>>>>>>>HERE go to new website.

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DAMIEN’S SECRET

The canonization of St Damien, the apostle of the lepers, in St Peter’s Square in Rome on October 11 next will be of more than passing interest to many people in Ireland, not least the priests, sisters and brothers of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts (SS.CC.), the religious family to which the new saint belongs..

“A humble scene in a backward place/Where no one important ever looked” is how Patrick Kavanagh describes a locale in one of his poems. It is an apt description of an isolated spot called Kalaupapa on Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands where a 33-year-old priest volunteered to serve people suffering from leprosy – now known as Hansen’s disease – who had first been quarantined and then expelled to this lonely outpost. The leper settlement there has been described as “a suburb of hell”. There was no law or order in the place and a constant shortage of supplies, medical treatment and food. Housing for the suffering was totally lacking. These poor people had been totally abandoned.

It was here that the priest who will be canonised on October 11 next worked for 16 years, alone and unaided for more than a decade of those years. He cleaned and bandaged wounds, amputated gangrenous limbs, built more that three hundred simple homes, erected 8 churches and chapels, laid a pipeline to bring fresh water to the settlement, made – it is estimated – more that 1600 coffins without any outside assistance, dug graves and buried the dead. It was only shortly before his death that help arrived in the form of Franciscan nuns, as well as some priests from his Congregation and two lay stalwarts, Joseph Dutton and James Sinnett. “Brother Joseph” and “Brother James”, Damien called them.

A biographer described Damien as “a vigorous, forceful, impellent man with a generous heart in the prime of life and a jack of all trades, carpenter, mason, baker, farmer, medico and nurse, no lazy bone in the makeup of his manhood, busy from morning till nightfall”. He was constantly interceding with the authorities of church and state on behalf of his poor people and he was not too popular with these same authorities. His local superior once reported him to the Order’s central government in Europe for being “excessive in his demands on behalf of his lepers”.

It is almost impossible to grasp how one man could accomplish what Father Damien accomplished during his lifetime. There is, however, one aspect of his life that has received less attention. In spite of the extraordinary demands made on him, he reserved the first hours of every day for prayer and spiritual reflection. His constant companion was a 15th century devotional book, The Imitation of Christ, which called for humility and austerity and a continuing self-examination. Damien took the lessons of the book to heart; even when he was dying he continued to sleep on a straw mattress on the floor. “Let it be our chief study,” the Imitation counsels, “to meditate on the life of Jesus Christ …. Jesus has many lovers of his heavenly kingdom, but few who are willing to bear his cross”. How well Damien learned that lesson. This is a side of the new saint that is seldom referred to. This is Damien’s secret.

Sufferings there were in abundance in his life, physical and mental sufferings. He worried greatly because he had no spiritual director or regular confessor. Sometimes when a ship came close to Molokai with a priest on board, Damien would row out and shout his confessions up to the priest on board. This was as close as the law would allow him to approach. He was also aware of allegations of immorality made against him during his lifetime and, indeed, after his death. These accusations were caused by bigotry and envy but also by a wrong notion of the time that the disease of leprosy could be transmitted solely by sexual contact with someone suffering from the disease. The famous writer Robert Louis Stevenson took up the cudgels on Damien’s behalf in this regard and wrote an impassioned Open Letter to Dr Hyde which has become a classic.

Damien identified with the lepers. He smoked their pipes and ate from their dishes. It was only too inevitable that he would contract the disease himself. The moment of his awareness that he had contracted the disease is represented dramatically in many of the films made about his life. He was washing his foot in a basin of water and when he was finished with one foot and put his second foot in the basin he had to pull it out quickly for the water was almost boiling hot. It then dawned on him that he was now himself a leper. In his homilies at Mass in the settlement up to this time he addressed his congregation as “You, lepers” but on the next occasion he started with “We, lepers”.

Suddenly Damien, Molokai and the leper settlement there went from total obscurity to world wide recognition. Ghandi claimed that there were very few heroes to compare with him. The Prince of Wales had a memorial erected to his memory. In later years a massive sculpture would commemorate him in the Hall of Statuary in the US Capitol building. His name and work appeared on the front pages of the major world newspapers. King Leopold III of the Belgians requested that Damien’s remains be brought back to his native country. Pope Pius XI informed the king that the Church would be considering Damien for sainthood. President Franklin D Roosevelt despatched the troop carrier Republic to take the priest’s remains as far as the Panama Canal where it was transferred to the Belgian ship The Mercator for the long journey home.

There was only one problem with this worldwide recognition and Damien’s final journey home: it was against his own wishes. He had asked that he be allowed to await the day of Resurrection among his “beloved lepers”. It was certainly against the wishes of the lepers themselves who bade farewell to their beloved “Kamiano” with “wails and lamentations” as one newspaper of the day put it. John Paul II recognised this in 1995 when he entrusted the bones of Damien’s right hand to a delegation of lepers in Brussels to be returned to the saint’s original burial place on Molokai.

The great theologian of the last century, Karl Rahner, stated more than once that the church has a duty to proclaim the holiness of its greatest members precisely because it has the duty of proclaiming the grace of God and what that grace accomplishes in people like Damien. He, together with all the saints, including Mary Queen of Saints, everybody and every thing holy are signposts or fingers pointing beyond themselves to God, the source of all goodness and holiness. Unfortunately, as the old proverb puts it, “the fool sees only the finger”!

The numbers at the leper settlement on Molokai are down to twenty or so and a group of these will be on hand in St Peter’s Square in Rome on October 11 next to see their great hero canonised. St Kamiano of Molokai, pray for them and for all of us!
by: Bishop Brendan Comiskey, ss.cc.
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Escape From Alcatraz

Father Damien held up by America's most wanted

Daniel J. Demers | SEPTEMBER 28, 2009

America Magazine: On a dreary, wintry afternoon in San Francisco, the army transport ship Republic arrived from Honolulu at Fort Mason, just inside the entrance to the bay. The ship passed under the Golden Gate Bridge, which was still being built; it would be opened to traffic the following year. In the ship’s hold that day, Feb. 11, 1936, was the body of Joseph Damien de Veuster, known as Father Damien, the Leper Priest. At the request of King Leopold III, Damien’s remains were being taken back to his native Belgium. Pope Pius XI had notified the king that Damien was to be considered for sainthood in the church. The king had contacted President Franklin D. Roosevelt, asking for his assistance in the move. Roosevelt, in turn, had the body lifted from its grave on the island of Molokai in what was then the U.S. Territory of Hawaii and, according to reports, “promptly ordered the troop ship to prepare to transport the body.” No one was thinking of Alcatraz. The events that followed were chronicled, almost day by day, in the San Francisco newspapers.

Apostle to the Lepers
Damien was born in Tremeloo, Belgium, in 1840. While the Civil War raged in the United States, he arrived in the Kingdom of Hawaii as a 24-year-old missionary priest. In 1868, four years after Damien’s arrival, the King of Hawaii ordered all leprosy victims quarantined and expelled them to an isolated 800-acre tract on Molokai known as Kalaupapa. As was widely known within the island kingdom, the settlement had fallen into civil disarray because of a shortage of supplies, food and medical treatment. Yet in 1873, Father Damien volunteered to spiritually serve the leprosy patients at the colony. He is credited with organizing the populace into a community—overseeing and participating in the construction of houses, a hospital and a church. He publicized the terrible plight of the victims torn from their homes and families, and his efforts received worldwide recognition. As a result, he garnered large donations of money and supplies, which enhanced the living conditions at the colony. Father Damien ministered to the lepers for 12 years before he contracted and, four years later, succumbed to the disease. He died at the Kalaupapa settlement in 1889 at the age of 49.

Nearly half a century later, at Fort Mason, the remains of the holy man were taken from the ship in a procession of a size appropriate for a deceased ambassador. The cortege that wound its way through San Francisco was composed of thousands of Catholic clergymen; the Belgian consul general and U.S. federal, state and city officials; Belgian World War I veterans living in San Francisco; ordinary citizens; and a full military honor guard. Damien’s body lay in state at St. Mary’s Cathedral under a 24-hour military guard provided at Roosevelt’s direction. The public was invited to pay their respects to the hero-priest in a series of religious rites performed during Damien’s five-day stay in the city, including Masses and eulogies by the local archbishop, John J. Mitty, and other high-ranking members of the clergy.

Rioting on Alcatraz
With the ship safely docked and its precious cargo unloaded, the crew went on shore leave. As was the custom, the ship’s laundry was taken to the nearest federal prison to be cleaned—Alcatraz. But there was a hitch: the prison was in lockdown mode. A riot had erupted there a few days earlier, caused by a flubbed surgery that had left a prisoner dead.

That prisoner, Jack Allen, was known to prison medical authorities as a “faker.” He often “appeared in sick lines when he apparently was not ill.” On Feb. 7 Allen reported to the hospital complaining of painful stomach symptoms. The physician on duty, Dr. Jess Jacobsen, aware of Allen’s history of hypochondria, initially ignored his complaints. When Jacobsen finally performed an operation, however, he discovered that a stomach ulcer had ruptured. Subsequently, Allen died. According to news reports, the physician became “the target of catcalls” by the inmates. The catcalls led to a prison riot, which the local press sensationalized. One report called the incident the “Mad Mutiny” and another the “Revolt on the Rock.” The melee forced the warden to order a lockdown. Compounding the seething unrest were the extraordinary precautions taken to protect Al (Scarface) Capone and George (Machine Gun) Kelly, both of them prisoners who had refused to participate in the riot. The mutineers had “branded them as ‘rats’ for their refusal to join in the uprising.”

The leaders of the uprising were Ludwig (Dutch) Schmidt and Norman (the Fox) Whitaker. Schmidt was a notorious mail-truck robber, whom federal authorities had transferred to Alcatraz after he had escaped from a federal prison in Atlanta. In one internal report, the Federal Bureau of Investigation noted Schmidt was “a leader and dangerous criminal and a dangerous influence” on other prisoners. Whitaker was an international chess master and notorious thief who had been implicated in the Charles Lindbergh kidnapping case and was serving a 15-year sentence. Schmidt and Whitaker were being held “in solitary confinement in the prison dungeon,” when 65 other prisoners, who had participated in the riot, were also confined to their cells.

As a result, the prison industries were “hampered by the number of men confined to their cells.” Prison officials reported that the handling of the “large shipment of laundry from the army transport Republic,” just in from Honolulu, was expected to be delayed. The Republic was on a tight schedule en route to the Panama Canal, where Father Damien’s body was to be transferred to the Belgian ship Mercator, which would take his venerated remains on to the port of Antwerp.

The problem was resolved when the warden of Alcatraz announced the transfer of Dr. Jacobsen to a Marine hospital in Seattle; this “relieved the strained conditions” among the prison population. Still, the laundry delivery was nearly 12 hours late, forcing a delay of the Republic’s scheduled departure. With Damien’s casket again on board, the ship’s captain made up the lost time during the voyage by sailing at full steam. Then authorities expedited the ship’s passage through the Panama Canal, advancing her to the head of the line of waiting ships. The casket containing the leper martyr’s body was transferred on schedule to the Mercator at Colon, Panama Canal Zone.

Finally at Rest
Father Damien was finally buried in Belgium on May 6, 1936. When he was laid to rest, one newspaper speculated that his deeds in Hawaii caring for the lepers might lead eventually to his “being enshrined in sainthood.” Those words were prescient.

The Hawaiian people, meanwhile, had considered the priest as one of their own. When Damien’s body was removed from Hawaii for the long trek to Belgium, it took place amid the “wails and lamentations” of the Hawaiian people. Their feelings were finally addressed in 1995, when Pope John Paul II presented the bones of Damien’s right hand to a delegation of Hawaiians. The relic was returned to Damien’s original burial place on Molokai.

Blessed Damien of Molokai will be canonized a saint on Oct. 11, 2009.

Daniel J. Demers, a semi-retired businessman who resides in the San Francisco Bay area, writes about historic 20th-century events.

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New Damien T Shirts

See: http://seraphimwings.wordpress.com/goods/father-damien/
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New Website on St. Damien

The Irish English Province of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts have today posted a new website on St Damien. Click >>>>>>>>>>>HERE go to new website.
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Fr. Damien Relic to go on Tour

Will Make Several Stops from Rome to Hawaii
HONOLULU, Hawaii, SEPT. 9, 2009 (Zenit.org).- After Father Damien, the “apostle to the lepers” is canonized by Benedict XVI next month, his relic will make stops in several cities on its way back home. The Honolulu Diocese announced this on a special Web site it created for the upcoming Oct. 11 canonization of Blessed Jozef Damien de Veuster, a Belgian priest who dedicated his life to ministering to people with Hansen’s disease, commonly known as leprosy, in a colony in Hawaii. The site offers details about Blessed Damien’s life, prayers, videos, photos, a gift shop and details for a pilgrimage to Belgium and Rome for the canonization ceremony. It was created by a volunteer committee of professionals in Hawaii to celebrate the upcoming ceremony.

Bishop Clarence Silva of Honolulu stated, “We pray that Father Damien will inspire us all to reach out to those most in need, to make a real difference in their lives, and to serve them with the love of Christ.” On the day the priest is declared a saint in the Vatican, the prelate will be given a relic to carry back to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu, where Damien was ordained in 1864.

Although he was buried in Kalaupapa, on the island of Molokai, when he died in 1889, his body was exhumed and moved to his birthplace in Belgium in 1936. In 1995, when Father Damien was beatified, a relic was sent back to Hawaii to be reinterred in the original grave near the leper colony where he worked until he himself died of the disease. Now, a second relic will be given to Hawaii, for veneration in its capital city, Honolulu. On its way back from Rome, it will make stops in Detroit, Michigan, San Francisco and Oakland, California.

It will then travel between the Hawaiian islands until it is brought to its resting place in a Nov. 1 procession and interfaith service at the Iolani Palace. The Honolulu Advertiser reported that the relic will be brought to Kalaupapa on Oct. 31, where students will carry it down an hour hike to the location of the leper colony. The relic will be accompanied on the entire tour by either the bishop or a priest designated to take his place.

Bishop Silva affirmed, “The presence of the relic draws us closer to the person in the hope that we can be inspired to love God and give ourselves for our neighbor even as Father Damien did.”
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Kalaupapa Woman Credits Father Damien For Recovery

When Hawaii’s first saint -- Father Damien -- is canonized this fall, he will be honored for his selfless service to Hansen’s disease patients in Kalaupapa. A survivor tells of how she left her family to recover and live on Molokai, and how Damien's example helped her cope. In Kalaupapa, the stories of Hansen’s disease survivors are intertwined with the legacy of Father Damien.

Ivy Kahilihiwa was just a Kauai teenager when something started happening to her body. "From here they found out I had one spot, like ringworm, and then it come to my face, the side of my face,” she explained. It wasn't ringworm. It was leprosy. ”When I went to see him, the doctor told me to stand by the door, do not come in. Stand by the door,” she said. Kahilihiwa was treated on Oahu, with years and countless courses of medication. "Then afterwards they say to me, if I want to come to Kalaupapa, I said I’d like to come to visit, to see what it's all about you know,” she said. That’s when she came to Molokai.

She remembers the kanaka air flight. "I'm looking out the cliff the ocean, it's just like my home place. It touched me just like my home place.” She recalls doctors and nurses asking if she was scared. She'd left her family. She faced a disease that had engendered quarantine and fear. She says she found her courage in Father Damien. "Damien and Marianne where they have suffered with people before, and it's hard for them, same thing, same thing with me too,” she said. "You have to stay, you know, pray to him and stay -- it's hard for me but I’m thankful, you know," she said. Thankful and at peace, even though she wouldn't see her family for years. It was something about Kalaupapa and Damien that helped her pull through.
Reported by: Gina Mangieri

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Actor portrays Father Damien as priest's Canonization nears

Television and theater actor Casey Groves had an epiphany near a rivulet nine years ago while re-reading the one-man play he performed as a high school senior at De La Salle High School in New Orleans about Hawaii's Catholic hero, Father Damien.

"I was working down at The Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., for a year and a half, and we were cranking out play after play," said the 38-year-old thespian and adjunct theater professor at St. Peter's College in New Jersey, whose television credits include "Damages" with Glenn Close, "Law and Order," and "One Life to Live," where he has a recurring role as a policeman. On a whim, he took out his "Damien" script, written by Aldyth Morris, based on the true story of a Belgian missionary priest who ministered to people suffering from leprosy at an isolated settlement on the Hawaiian Island of Molokai in the 1800s. Blessed Damien --- who died at age 49 from leprosy which he contracted after years of serving his quarantined flock --- will be canonized a saint on Oct. 11. "I read the script sitting by this little stream that runs through D.C. and I just started crying," said Groves, a college theater major who has a master's in religious studies from Holy Names College in Oakland and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College in Vermont.

His recurring thoughts of performing the play again got a boost when, on a visit to New York, he happened to see an article in Back Stage magazine about actors exploring spirituality in religious-themed productions. Intrigued, he contacted an off-Broadway theater housed in a church which had an Episcopal nun producer. "It turns out Father Damien was a huge hero of hers from when she was in high school," said Groves. "She offered me the theater for free --- an $8,000 a week theater and gave me two weeks in October of 2000. Father Damien's order (Congregation of the Sacred Hearts) gave me a grant for seed money for the production. That's how it all happened."

Since that first off-Broadway production of Damien, he has performed the play nationally more than 100 times, including throughout the Hawaiian Islands where he married his actress/singer wife, Rachel Whitman, in a ceremony at the leprosy settlement in 2006. During his 2009 Hawaiian Islands tour in April and May, he did 21 performances of Damien in 19 days. The director of Damien, Jesuit Father George Drance, is artistic director of the Magis Theatre Company, which has featured Groves in several of its productions. "With Damien's canonization coming, I made a decision to give myself over to the play for the fall," said Groves, who performed the play last week at archdiocesan parishes, including St. Basil in Los Angeles, Holy Name of Mary in San Dimas and Our Lady of the Assumption in Santa Maria.

He will return to California in October to perform in the presence of Father Damien's relic at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco and at St. Joseph Church in Alameda, where the relic will be housed en route to Hawaii from Rome. He also hopes to bring the play to more Southern California churches and schools to heighten awareness about the newly-canonized saint. "My intention in getting my master's in religious studies was to do theater that spoke to the soul," said Groves, adding that he wanted to be a part of creating theater that brings healing and transformation in people's lives. "That's what this play is all about to me, taking what's difficult and changing it into something beautiful."

For more information about Casey Groves' one man show about Damien, call Sister of Social Service Gail Young in the archdiocesan Office of Justice and Peace, (213) 637-7690, or contact the actor at (917) 969-8698 or caseydgroves@gmail.com.
By Paula Doyle
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Damien’s work continues in India

Question: If Father Damien were alive today, where would he be?
Answer: Perhaps in India, where Hansen’s disease has stubbornly stepped into the 21st century despite the drugs that should have halted it decades ago.

The saint-to-be actually does reside in spirit in the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar at the Damien Social Development Institute. There leprosy and its savage effects are combated with standing and mobile medical clinics, rehabilitation programs, nutrition programs, housing projects, vocational training and education. The institute’s stated vision is “To eliminate human sufferings in order to revive and enhance the spirit of equality and dignity.” It also participates in the worldwide campaign to eliminate Hansen’s disease.

The institute was opened as the “Damien Institute” in 1979 by Sacred Hearts Father William Petrie, an American whose priestly vocation was inspired by a biography of Father Damien he read as a boy. Father Petrie came to India in 1975 to work with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity at a Hansen’s disease facility in Shantinagar, west of Bengal. Mother Teresa asked the priest to turn his attention to those with the disease, particularly the impoverished, in Bhubaneswar where he started his program.

The Damien Clinic, the institute’s main medical clinic, treats hundreds with a team of doctors, a pharmacist, a lab technician and others. Mobile clinics two or three times a month bring services to a number of leprosy communities and houses, and to dozens of slum areas. Rehabilitation programs deliver wheelchairs, crutches, hearing aids, and walking sticks for the blind to those that need them in surrounding villages. A nutrition program provides school children in one leprosy community, many whose parents provide for their families by begging, one balanced, nutritious meal a day.

The Damien Social Development Institute helps young men and women gain vocational training as tailors, mechanics, paramedicals, drivers, weavers and electricians and also runs an interfaith hostel which provides food and board for male students attending a local college. The institute is a project of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts, Father Damien’s congregation, and many of its department supervisors are priests of that order.
By Patrick Downes Hawaii Catholic Herald
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Searching for the Spirit of Blessed Father Damien

The pali (cliff) trail on Molokai’s north shore descends almost 2,000 feet over three miles and 26 switchbacks. While the trail and its cinder block steps are carefully maintained by the National Park Service, it still takes its toll on aging knees and ankles. The trail’s steepness and the lack of accommodations once you reach the bottom, account for the popularity of the mule ride, one of the few alternatives for visitors to the mysterious and tragic peninsula of Kalaupapa.

On this, my third trip to Kalaupapa down the pali trail, my feet felt fine and my step was particularly light in anticipation of the day’s activities. I was excited to witness a truly historical event. Hawaii State Senator J. Kalani English, who represents Molokai and Makawao County where Kalaupapa lies, would attend the August 2008 monthly town meeting for the settlement to issue a formal apology from the state. “We’re sorry. We’re sorry for the treatment, we’re sorry for the suffering,” said English to a packed crowd at McVeigh Hall. “You know you are special to the state and to me personally and it is time we recognize that.” Sen. English admitted that the apology was long overdue. To be exact, 39 years overdue. Between 1866 and 1969, those who contracted leprosy, now known as Hansen’s disease, were forced into exile on five square miles of windswept land jutting into the Pacific. In the 19th century, infected people were so feared and reviled that when the boat from Oahu sailed past the peninsula they were forced overboard right into the wild currents and waves. Many of these patients drowned before reaching the shore, weighed down by the layers of clothes and valuables they bore. Those who survived the swim to shore were often the poor who carried fewer worldly possessions to weigh them down.

Once on shore, the survivors were provided almost no medicine or other supplies. A complete lack of building materials made it difficult for the early residents to find shelter from the winter storms that barrel through Molokai’s unprotected north shore. Lacking basic services, Kalaupapa became known as a lawless and miserable destiny. Many died those first years and were buried in unmarked cemeteries along the shore.

The Story of Blessed Father Damien
Then in 1873, Father Damien de Veuster arrived. A Belgian missionary priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Father Damien truly became a gift from God for those suffering under the inhumane conditions. Father Damien had been ordained in Honolulu and then spent almost ten years on the Big Island of Hawaii beginning in 1864, learning the Hawaiian customs and language. When Father Damien was sent to Kalaupapa at the age of 33, he brought hope and Christian love to a neglected community dealing with despair, drunkenness, licentiousness and abuse. He also brought a strong back that helped build churches and homes. Serving as doctor, nurse, carpenter, engineer, farmer, legal advocate and much more, Damien became a hero to the outside world almost instantly.

Incurable at the time, Hansen’s disease was believed to have been brought to Hawaii from China by migrant workers. Ravages of the disease include losses of limbs and horrible disfigurement. Although repulsed by the infection, Damien visited the sick and every house in the settlement at least once a week. Disregarding medical precautions, Damien ate with his people, touched them and welcomed them to his house. By 1884, Father Damien had contracted the disease. Five years later he passed away and his body was buried beside St. Philomena Church that he had built. In 1936, his body was exhumed and taken to Belgium to be laid to rest. Today, Father Damien’s statue stands in front of the Hawaii State Capitol and a duplicate sculpture is in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C.

The Apology
In the 1940s, sulfide drugs were discovered to stop the spread of Hansen’s disease. Yet the patients of Kalaupapa were still forced to remain isolated until 1969. Said Sen. English to the community of Kalaupapa: “Sometimes we act irrationally and the government has done that. From 1948 to 1969, there was no real reason to keep you isolated; it was the government being afraid, people not understanding.”

In April of 2008, Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 208 was passed. This two-and-a-half page resolution offered a sincere apology for the actions of the state through the Department of Health. Kalaupapa resident Elroy “Makia” Malo asked Sen. English to read the full resolution at the meeting and in front of his brother Paul Harada’s grave. English happily obliged. Harada, who passed away in January of 2008, had been a long-time advocate for patients’ rights in Kalaupapa and had sought a state apology for years. “We are very grateful for you to come here and give us this resolution,” said Kalaupapa resident Gloria Marks, who was sister-in-law to Harada. “I’d just like to say this is way overdue and thank you.”

Mrs. Marks and her husband Richard Marks started Damien Tours in 1966, which is still the only way for outsiders to visit Kalaupapa. In December of 2008, Richard Marks succumbed to a long illness and passed away at the age of 79. Shortly after Marks’ passing, Maui County Council chairman Danny Mateo called him “an ambassador, not just for Kalaupapa but for all of Molokai.” Besides being a tireless advocate for patients’ rights in Kalaupapa, Marks was also the last sheriff of Kalawao County and was the driving force in establishing the Kalaupapa National Historic Park in 1980. Jennifer Cerny, chief of cultural resources for the Kalaupapa National Historic Park, said that if it was not for Richard Marks, the National Park Service would never have come to Molokai.

The settlement sustained another loss in April 2009 when Henry Nalaielu died at the age of 83 in Kalaupapa. First brought there in 1941, Nalaielu was something of a Renaissance man, known as a poet, composer, genealogist, storyteller, guitarist, singer, craftsman and painter; a scholar and philosopher. He also helped organize Na Pu’uwai, the Native Hawaiian Health Care System for Molokai and Lanai. In 2006, Nalaielua published his autobiography “No Footprints in the Sand,” an insightful, sad, yet often humorous portrait of life in Kalaupapa. The National Park Service had recently hired Nalaielua to help identify people and events recorded in old archived photographs.

In April 2009, a bill was signed into law establishing a memorial within Kalaupapa National Historical Park to honor and remember Hansen’s disease patients. Of approximately 8,000 patients buried at Kalaupapa, only about 1,300 have marked graves. Ka ‘Ohana O Kalaupapa, a group of Hansen’s disease patients, relatives and friends, will cover the memorial’s cost. But the interior secretary would have final approval of the monument’s design, size, inscriptions and location. A location has not yet been chosen. As of July 2009, about 15-20 patients remain in Kalaupapa where they still receive food, housing and medical care from the Hawaii Department of Health. Of course they are free to leave anytime, but patients choose to stay since it is the only home they know. Another 100 to 130 state and park service employees live in Kalaupapa on either a full- or part-time basis. The National Park Service recently held twelve public scoping workshops across Hawaii to develop a long-term management plan for Kalaupapa. Input from these meetings will guide the park’s preservation and use over the next 15-20 years.

Damien Becomes a Saint
In July of 2008, Pope Benedict XVI approved the second miracle attributed to Father Damien involving the cure from cancer for Audrey Toguchi, a former high school teacher on Oahu. This marked the fulfillment of a rigorous process that began 100 years ago with the overnight healing of a French nun. It was this miracle that beatified Damien, giving him the title of “Blessed.” Now that two confirmed miracles have been attributed to Damien’s intervention, the road to his canonization as a saint of the Catholic Church has been cleared. Damien will be the first saint with a Hawaii connection. When Damien becomes a saint on October 11 at a ceremony at the Vatican, the pope will give a relic of Damien, thought to be a bone, to Bishop Larry Silva, Bishop of Honolulu. The relic has a world tour planned that includes a visit to Molokai topside and Kalaupapa before finding its resting place at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu. A fundraiser at the Sheraton Waikiki in July raised over $100,000 to help send eleven Kalaupapa patients to Rome for the ceremony.

Mother Marianne Cope, who followed Damien at Kalaupapa and who died there in 1918, is also a candidate for sainthood. She was beatified in Rome in 2005. Blessed Marianne was a Sister of St. Francis and an American citizen who grew up in upstate New York.

Visiting Kalaupapa
Kalaupapa was chosen as the site to quarantine Hansen’s disease patients because it is difficult to get to and leave. Today, it can only be reached by small boat, small plane, or down the pali trail by foot or mule. Outside visitors are limited to 100 per day. There is no lodging or food for visitors. To visit, a person must either be hosted by a Kalaupapa resident or join Damien Tours, which can accommodate about 40 people a day. Tours are Monday through Friday, approximately four hours long, and include a drive through the settlement in a yellow school bus. The cost is $40 per person. For reservations call (808) 567-6171.

Pacific Wings is the only airline serving Kalaupapa with rates recently increased to $492 round-trip from topside Molokai on a nine-seat prop plane. For approximately $175 you can take a mule ride down that includes the Father Damien Tour and lunch. For reservations, call Molokai Mule Ride at (800) 567-7550 (toll free) or (808) 567-6088. It is recommended to make reservations at least two weeks in advance.

By David Lichtenstein, News Director for KMKK radio. He can be reached at molokainews@live.com
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The Witness of Damien's life for 2009

The Anawim of 2009 and Damien. This video explores the message and witness of Damien's life for today.

Damien and the Sacred Heart

Fr. Damien was a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. This video explains why the symbol of the Sacred Heart was such a strong motivation for him in living such a meaningful life.

The Story of Fr. Damien

An excellent video, courtesy of "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly" Further info regarding the video at the following link >>>>HERE

11 of the 21 Patients to Travel to Rome

11 of the 21 remaining patients at Kalaupapa, Molokai will travel to Rome for the canonisation of Fr. Damien on October 11th. See the Hawaii KGMG 9 report below.

A video of 8 Fr. Damien Boy scouts travelling to Rome for the canonisation can be seen HERE courtesy of the NCRegister.

Students 'Walked where Father Damien walked'

Honolulu Advertiser: July 4th: Chris Kanamu stood yesterday at the steps of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, where Father Damien was ordained, as he talked about how he's been moved by the life of the Belgian priest known worldwide for his service to Hansen's disease patients.

"He gave up his life to help people," said Kanamu, 14, one of 68 incoming Damien Memorial School seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders who went on a walking tour of Downtown yesterday to retrace the footsteps of their school's namesake. The students, dressed in slacks, button-up shirts and ties, also draped lei on the Father Damien statue at the state Capitol as part of an orientation to the school.

The all-boys school annually introduces its incoming high schoolers to Father Damien during a summer program. But this year, in anticipation of Damien's elevation to sainthood in October, the walking tour was added to the orientation. Damien high school division principal Michael Weaver said the tour was meant to drive home for students that Damien was a real person who did amazing things. "He's not just a guy who lived 1,000 years ago. He's not a made-up fairy tale," Weaver told the students, while they stood outside the cathedral. "He's a person that lived one hundred and some years ago who made the ultimate sacrifice for people." Weaver added, "That's what we expect of you."

Weaver led the tour, the culmination of several weeks of orientation classes that included readings on Damien. Students sat in pews at the cathedral, listening to Weaver and asking questions and also gathered outside the Catholic Diocese in Honolulu. Weaver said the walking tour will likely become a tradition. It was added this year as part of several events students at Damien Memorial School are doing to celebrate Damien's canonization.

The Rev. Damien de Veuster was ordained at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in May 1864. He arrived in Kalaupapa nine years later to minister to Hansen's disease patients, and died in 1889 from the disease. The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts priest will be elevated to sainthood Oct. 11 in Rome.

Jacob Glasgow, 14, said the walking tour yesterday helped drive home for him the contributions Damien made — and not too long ago. "We walked where Father Damien walked," he said.
Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.
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A new Spanish website on Damien at New website

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Father Damien's life a timely teaching tool

In classrooms across the state, the canonization of Father Damien is being used as a history-in-the-making lesson to teach kids everything from the importance of helping others to the complicated protocols involved when someone is considered for sainthood. And teachers say the story of Damien, who served Hansen's disease patients on Moloka'i, is captivating their young audiences, so used to reading about famous names who lived long ago and far away. "He's a state hero," said Michael Weaver, principal of the high school division at Damien Memorial School in Kalihi. "This is not somebody you're reading about in a textbook who lived thousands of years ago across the world."

Damien School, named after the Catholic priest, will include a section on Damien in its upcoming summer orientation for freshmen coming in from other schools. Though the summer orientation has always discussed Damien, this year's instruction on the priest will be expanded in anticipation of his October canonization — the declaration of Damien as a saint. And it will culminate with a trip to the state Capitol to visit the Damien statue and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, where Damien was ordained.

At other schools, Damien has been incorporated into all sorts of lessons:

At Moloka'i High School and several other public schools, the Catholic priest is being discussed in-depth in Hawaiian studies classes, with students learning about his service and the lives of the Hansen's disease patients whom he helped. Manuwai Peters, lead teacher in the Hawaiian language immersion program at Moloka'i High, said students this semester studied the oral histories of patients. Next semester, students will write chants to commemorate his canonization and will study the history of Kalaupapa, including before Damien arrived.

Sacred Hearts Academy in Kaimuki has developed a curriculum on Father Damien for students, and in September will invite alumna Audrey Toguchi to speak to classrooms. Toguchi saw her aggressive form of cancer cured after praying to Damien a decade ago. Her cure was the second miracle attributed to Damien, which assured his elevation to sainthood.

St. Anthony and St. John Vianney schools in Kailua are incorporating Damien into an educational grant they received aimed at enhancing learning through technology. The grant will give teachers the chance, said St. Anthony Principal Bridget Olsen, to use new ways to talk about Damien. Some of the ideas for the coming semester include discussing Hansen's disease in science classrooms and studying the lives of Hawaiians during Damien's time.

"We're trying to look at topics to go across the entire curriculum," Olsen said.

other schools

Though the emphasis on Damien has been strongest at Catholic schools, many non-Catholic schools are also teaching students about the priest or planning events around his canonization. Kamehameha Schools Maui campus Chaplain Kalani Wong said he uses Damien as an example of how "we can all be servants to people." Every year, Wong takes students to Kalaupapa for a service project and teaches them about Damien's life. This year, he's also been talking to students about the process of becoming a saint.

The Rev. Damien de Veuster, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts priest known worldwide for his service to the Hansen's disease patients in Kalaupapa until his death from the disease in 1889, will be elevated to sainthood Oct. 11 in Rome. Only eight others from what is now American soil have received the high honor from the Catholic Church.

Carmen Himenes, superintendent of Hawai'i Catholic schools, said Damien — the first person from the Islands to become a saint — fascinates students because of his compelling story and his local connection. "It makes sense to them because it happened here," she said. The Catholic Diocese of Honolulu has developed lesson plans on Damien for Catholic schools. Plans are available for all grade levels, and range from coloring books for younger kids to study guides on Damien's life and times for older students. Himenes said the lessons share a common theme — that everyone can do something to help the less fortunate. "You just start small," Himenes said.

At St. Patrick School in Kaimuki, Damien has been talked about in just about every classroom throughout the school year: First-graders made posters to depict Damien's life and fifth-graders wrote journal entries as they learned about his childhood in Belgium and journey to Hawai'i. In an eighth-grade class, students made newspapers and wrote articles about Damien and discussed the long and involved process before someone becomes a saint.

path to sainthood

The petition for Damien's sainthood was formally introduced in 1955. Forty years later, Damien was beatified — the final big step before someone is elevated to sainthood. Then, in 2008, his canonization was secured after a second miracle was attributed to him. The date of Damien's canonization was announced Feb. 21. Kendra Masunaga, who teaches seventh- and eighth-graders at the school, said her students have taken pride in knowing one of Hawai'i's own is going to become a saint. And his story, she added, hits home for them because he was just a normal man "who did something incredible." She added, "They're already calling him Saint Damien."

On a recent weekday, St. Patrick sixth-grader Andrew Wong showed off a black composition book that he used to jot down his thoughts on Damien through the year. He said he was struck by Damien's selflessness and the sacrifices he made for others. He was also pretty surprised that someone from Hawai'i is being elevated to sainthood. "We're such a small place," he said. "I was amazed he was chosen."

By Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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Official Father Damien Canonization Website Launches

KGMB9 News - A Google search of "Father Damien" pulls up more than one-million hits. Today, there will be one more, as the Diocese of Honolulu launches the official Blessed Damien Canonization website - www.fatherdamien.com. The website is designed as the "go to" place for Damien canonization essentials. Visitors to the site will find Blessed Damien history, information, resource links, Damien-related prayers, as well as Damien's biography. This Web site is one of the many initiatives being carried out by a small volunteer committee of local communication professionals to celebrate Blessed Damien's Canonization.

"We welcome you to this website about Father Damien, which shares information about his life and legacy as well as about celebrations of his canonization in Rome, his native Belgium, and in Hawaii," said Bishop Larry Silva. "We pray that Father Damien will inspire us all to reach out to those most in need, to make a real difference in their lives, and to serve them with the love of Christ."

Honolulu Advertiser: The Belgian-born priest is among those scheduled to take the final step to sainthood on Oct. 10 in Rome. He ministered to those suffering from what was then known as leprosy at a remote community on Molokai when no one else would, then died of the disease himself in 1889. The Web site is designed as the "go to" place for Damien canonization essentials.

Visitors to the site will find Damien history, information on the soon-to-be saint and the community he served at Kalaupapa, resource links, Damien-related prayers, as well as Damien's biography in English, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Spanish and Hawaiian. Readers will find pilgrimage travel details to Belgium/Rome, travel itinerary on relic (bones) of Damien in October/November, homilies, Damien music and videos, a photo gallery, an events calendar, Damien shop, and ways to make donations.

This Web site is one of the many initiatives being carried out by a small volunteer committee of local communication professionals to celebrate Blessed Damien's canonization. "We welcome you to this Web site about Father Damien, which shares information about his life and legacy as well as about celebrations of his canonization in Rome, his native Belgium, and in Hawaii," said Hawaii Catholic Bishop Larry Silva. "We pray that Father Damien will inspire us all to reach out to those most in need, to make a real difference in their lives, and to serve them with the love of Christ," he said.
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Northern Ireland Man diagnosed with Leprosy

Leprosy is still common in the developing world

A man from County Armagh has been diagnosed with leprosy, the BBC has learned.
BBC August 2007: The man, who wants to remain anonymous, is believed to have picked up the disease when he lived in Indonesia. He said that when he became ill, his ears, lips and nose became swollen, he developed a rash and lost sensation in his arms and legs. The man, who is receiving treatment for the condition at a London clinic, said he is now cured of the disease. He is hoping to be discharged from the clinic, where he has received treatment for several months. He said he had become a minor medical celebrity during his time there. "Every time I went to London for treatment, there'd be a doctor there from Amsterdam or France or wherever wanting to have a look at me," he said. "I still get tired if I exert myself but, apart from that, I'm back to normal."

Deformity: If left untreated, leprosy can cause deformity and disability but, despite its reputation, it is not highly contagious - only one in 10 people with it are infectious, even if they receive no treatment. To catch the infection, requires prolonged, close contact. Once infection has occurred, the disease can incubate for a very long time before symptoms appear. Often incubation lasts five years, but it can take as long as 20. In the early 90's, a World Health Organisation attempt to eradicate leprosy worldwide by the year 2000 failed. It is still endemic in India, parts of Africa and in many South American countries.
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An Old Soldier with Leprosy who caused a great deal of Alarm...

Dublin, Freemans Journal: 10 May 1890: Yesterday evening at seven o'clock John Murphy, an old soldier, who was afflicted with leprosy and whose presence in Dublin caused a great deal of alarm just about a year ago, died in the Hardwicke Hospital, North Brunswick Street. The existence of such a case in the city was first brought before the public early in May last year by a report published by Sir Charles Cameron to the Public Health Committee and subsequently in all the Dublin newspapers.
The death a short time before of Fr. Damien, the heroic priest of Molokai, had the result of drawing everyone's attention to the case, or "alleged case" as it was then called in Dublin and for a considerable time there was a strong feeling that the poor man should be removed to some establishment specially devoted to leprosy. The poor man it may be said, was born in Dublin on the 24th of June 1832, so that at the time of his death he was 58 years of age. He was in religion a Catholic and he received his early training in the Hibernian Militatry School, Phoenix Park. In 1845, he joined the 73rd Highlanders and he served with his regiment in South America, South Africa (against the Kaffirs) in India and in China. In 1872, he left the army and in 1875 he was admitted as a pensioner to the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, where he remained till 1887.
Taken from "The Sunday Tribune" Dublin, May 10th. 2009
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New Website on Damien

The Diocese of Honolulu have a new website on Damien at New website

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Saint of the Day - May 10th - Blessed Damien of Molokai

Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives. Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts. God calls each one of us to be a saint.

Feastday - May 10, 2009

Blessed Damien of Molokai

(1840-1889)

When Joseph de Veuster was born in Tremelo, Belgium, in 1840, few people in Europe had any firsthand knowledge of leprosy (Hansen's disease). By the time he died at the age of 49, people all over the world knew about this disease because of him. They knew that human compassion could soften the ravages of this disease.

Forced to quit school at age 13 to work on the family farm, six years later Joseph entered the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, taking the name of a fourth-century physician and martyr. When his brother Pamphile, a priest in the same congregation, fell ill and was unable to go to the Hawaiian Islands as assigned, Damien quickly volunteered in his place. In May 1864, two months after arriving in his new mission, Damien was ordained a priest in Honolulu and assigned to the island of Hawaii.

In 1873, he went to the Hawaiian government's leper colony on the island of Molokai, set up seven years earlier. Part of a team of four chaplains taking that assignment for three months each year, Damien soon volunteered to remain permanently, caring for the people's physical, medical and spiritual needs. In time, he became their most effective advocate to obtain promised government support.

Soon the settlement had new houses and a new church, school and orphanage. Morale improved considerably. A few years later he succeeded in getting the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse, led by Mother Marianne Kope, to help staff this colony in Kalaupapa.

Damien contracted Hansen's disease and died of its complications. As requested, he was buried in Kalaupapa, but in 1936 the Belgian government succeeded in having his body moved to Belgium. Part of Damien's body was returned to his beloved Hawaiian brothers and sisters after his beatification in 1995.

When Hawaii became a state in 1959, it selected Damien as one of its two representatives in the Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol. He will be canonised in Rome by Pope Benedict on Oct. 11th 2009.
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Celebrating Father Damien’s feast day in Honolulu

As the world waits for Father Damien de Veuster to be canonized on Oct. 11, 2009, Hawaii celebrates his feast day (May 10) this weekend with three nights of evening prayer services and a statue ceremony in Honolulu.

Last night, HAWAII Magazine was invited to attend the first evening prayer in honor of Blessed Damien of Molokai at Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace. We read psalms, sang Hawaiian songs and recited a Latin hymn. In the middle of the service, we paused to reflect on Father Damien’s life. A woman also read an excerpt from Damien: Servant of God, Servant of Humanity. Click here to listen to the excerpt.

Father Damien had compassion for Hawaii’s leprosy patients. (The term leprosy is of course outmoded. It’s now called Hansen’s Disease.)

Damien moved to Honolulu from Belgium in 1864, and later to Molokai on May 10, 1873. He cared for Hawaii’s leprosy patients when no one else seemed to care. As the late Hansen’s Disease sufferer and Kalaupapa resident Henry Nalaielua said, “He came, he saw, he conquered.”

If you’re on Oahu this weekend and missed last night’s service, there is an evening prayer tonight and on Saturday. On Sunday, the community will hold a ceremony at the Father Damien statue at the State Capitol beginning at 1:30 p.m. All events are free and open to the public.

In addition to the prayer services and ceremony, the Cathedral’s gallery has several rare artifacts on display for a limited time. Such items include Father Damien’s walking stick, glasses (pictured left), his Meerschaum pipe and a few letters signed by him.

You’ll also find Father Damien souvenirs available for purchase in the gallery— from postcards to books about Hawaii’s saint. The gallery will be open before and after this weekend’s evening prayers.



by Sherie Cher
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In Father Damien's Footsteps

Father Damien will be officially recognized as a saint Oct. 11, 2009, according to a recent Vatican announcement. His canonization, some 14 years after Pope John Paul II beatified him, may also be a blessing for Molokai, where the Belgian priest spent the last 16 years of his life serving those exiled to its infamous leper colony.

Molokai has been hard hit by the closing in late 2007 of Molokai Ranch, home to two of the island's three hotels, a golf course, cinemas and gas station, all now shuttered, as well the source of important ranching jobs, now lost. One of the few tourist activities widely associated with Molokai is the mule ride down to Kalaupapa, the isolated peninsula where some 8,000 people diagnosed with what the Hawaiians called ma‘i Pākē ("Chinese disease") lived and died. Leprosy is now called Hansen's disease, and Kalaupapa is now a national historic park, with just a handful of former patients living (voluntarily) on site.

But you don't have to ride mules down: You can book package trips from Maui that include ferry tickets and a guided hike down (and then up) a steep, 1,700-foot cliff with more than two dozen switchbacks; it's almost 6 miles round trip. You can also fly to the park, from Oahu and Molokai's "topside" airport in Hoolehua (Ho‘olehua in Hawaiian), or arrange to hike one way and fly the other. Among other sights, you'll see St. Philomena's Church, which Father Damien helped expand, and memorials to the priest and Mother Marianne Cope, who helped Father Damien and expanded his work.

Only Damien Tours, however, is allowed to lead visitors through the site; reservations are required (808-567-6171), children under 16 are not allowed and tours do not run on Sunday. Sadly, the founder of Damien Tours, Kalaupapa resident and self-described "leper" Richard Marks, passed away in 2008, just two months before Father Damien's canonization was announced. I never had the honor of taking a tour with Marks, but you'll find him being interviewed in the 2003 documentary "An Uncommon Kindness: The Father Damien Story."

A visitor gazes on the statue of Father Damien outside of St. Joseph's Church, which the priest built. (Photo Jeanne Cooper)

If you're traveling with kids, can't hike the steep 6-mile round-trip, or happen to be afraid of heights, mules and/or flying, you can still experience Father Damien's legacy on Molokai. A lei-adorned, weathered statue of the priest stands outside St. Joseph's Church in Kamalo (Kamalō) on the island's east side, which he built in 1876; his portrait also hangs inside. The indefatigable priest also built Our Lady of Seven Sorrows in Kaluaaha (Kalua‘aha), where his hat-clad silhouette graces the sign by the road, as well as two more topside chapels that no longer survive.

The two remaining churches can be visited independently, or as part of an all-day, guided van tour offered by Molokai Outdoors. They're part of today's Blessed Damien Catholic Parish, which will change its name to St. Damien Catholic Parish upon his canonization. The new St. Damien Catholic Church in Kaunakakai is expected to open in 2011, when it will replace St. Sophia's and become a focus of topside Damien devotion.

If you can't visit Kalaupapa itself, you should still drive to the end of Highway 47 to Pala'au State Park, which boasts a stunning overlook of Kalaupapa ("the flat leaf") and the tiny town of Kalawao. The sheer green wall -- part of the world's highest ocean cliffs -- rising above the peninsula and the lonely little town below reinforce the sense of isolation and abandonment the residents once felt. Father Damien was not the first person to minister to the leper colony, nor the last, but when he died of Hansen's disease at age 49, after years of labor on the patients' behalf, he came to epitomize all who lay down their life for another's.

Jeanne Cooper

The Kalaupapa Overlook at Pala'au State Park reveals the stark isolation of the former leper colony.

So who was Father Damien? Those who responded to my Sunday Quiz on Feb. 22 correctly responded that he was born Jozef de Veuster (also written "Joseph de Veuster") in Belgium, in 1840. (Congrats to Vivian Ho of Palo Alto, Carrie Temple of Dixon, Kas Nakamura of Pasadena, Md., Chris Engleman of Boulder, Colo., who will receive a small Hawaii-themed prize.)

Inspired to become a missionary to the "Sandwich Islands" by his older brother, who had hoped to go but became to ill to leave, de Veuster took the name Damien (Damiaan in Flemish, after St. Damianus) during his ordination in Honolulu in 1864. He then served eight years on the Big Island, where he learned to speak Hawaiian while building eight chapels and churches for his parishioners in the Puna, Kohala and Hāmākua districts.

Damien also spent time on Maui, where on May 1, 1873, he learned of the suffering at Kalaupapa from a newspaper article, according to his biography for the Greatest Belgian award ("De Grootste Belg.") Eight days later, he was on a boat to Molokai, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Rudy, tour driver for Molokai Outdoors, talks about Father Damien inside St. Joseph's, one of four churches the priest built "topside."
By Jeanne Cooper

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First Catholic Missionaries in Hawaii

On July 7th. 1827, the first Catholic missionary priests arrived in Hawaii. They were Frs. Alexius Bachelot (France), appointed as Prefect Apostolic, Abraham Armand (France) and Patrick Short (Ireland). Three non ordained brothers of the Congregation arrived with the priests. (Protestants of Congregationalist background had arrived in 1819). They were all members of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts. Following the General Chapter of 1824, Fr. Pierre Coudrin, who founded the Congregation in France in 1800, petioned Rome for a mission territory and was allocated the Sandwich Archipelago, later called the Hawaiian islands. A strong catholic community emerged in these early years but due to political pressure by Queen Kahahumanu who had become a Protestant, the Catholic missionary priests were forced to leave Hawaii in January 1832. The non ordained brothers of the Congregation were not effected by the political expulsion so they stayed on to support the small catholic community. While ongoing tensions were to exist for many years between the Protestant and Catholic missions, Catholic priests were reluctantly allowed to return in 1839, one year before Damien's birth in Tremeloo, Belgium and 25 years before his arrival in Honolulu.
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A Time of Transition at Kalaupapa

From the pali trail on north Molokai, one gets a panoramic view of the 10,000-acre Kalaupapa National Historical Park, site of a 142-year-old settlement for Hansen’s disease patients. (CHRIS HAMILTON photo)
National Park Service planning for future of Molokai historical park
KAHULUI, Maui News: April 24, 2009: - Just in the past year, the historic Kalaupapa leprosy settlement lost seven of 26 remaining patients with the long misunderstood and now curable disease. The youngest patient residing today at Kalaupapa National Historical Park is 68 years old, said park Superintendent Stephen Prokop. Add to the equation the onslaught of Catholic pilgrims anticipated after Father Damien's Vatican canonization as a saint Oct. 11, and Kalaupapa undoubtedly has reached a turning point, Prokop said. He made the comments Wednesday evening at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center during one of 12 public workshops organized by the Park Service to discuss the settlement and help chart its course for the next 30 years.

For the past year, the National Park Service has been preparing a general management plan for the 10,000-acre park, which is located on a Molokai peninsula with the world's tallest sea cliffs to its back. The park is accessible only by footpath, small plane or boat and has a cap of 100 visitors a day. The planning process, which is expected to take another three to four years to complete, also includes the creation of an environmental impact statement, said project manager Anna Tamura. Planning also could lead to more than tripling the park's acreage along the northeast shoreline. She said the workshops are just the first step in the process. The deadline to receive comments is July 13, but another set of meetings is planned for a year from now. Park Service workers and planning consultants are meeting with people who say they care deeply about Kalaupapa, many of whom have relatives who lived and died there during the settlement's 142-year history.

Foremost, the Park Service has been looking to the residents themselves for guidance, Prokop said. "The patients are our most important resource at Kalaupapa," he said. "Unfortunately, we are in a transition period and must prepare for a time when there are no longer any patients." For a century, Hawaii patients with leprosy, or Hansen's disease, were separated forcibly from their families and children and sent to Kalaupapa until 1969, even though a cure was discovered in the 1940s. Today, 12 people permanently live in the settlement, with others who live there part time. Their care is provided by the state Department of Health. One of them is Meli Watanuki, 74, who was relocated to Kalaupapa in 1964 and "paroled" in 1972, she said. People with the disease now need only outpatient care. "What I value most is the story of the people," said Meli's husband, Randall Watanuki, who is a kokua, or helper, for the Park Service. "There is no comparison to what they went through." He said patients not only lost their families and were ostracized from society, but in the process were deprived of their self-esteem. And it was because they had a gene possessed by only 4 percent of the population that they were even susceptible to the disease. "These are people who just had a bad break," he said.

Other testifiers, including members of the support group Ka 'Ohana O Kalaupapa, mentioned again and again how Kalaupapa feels like a special or spiritual place, filled with elements of hope, sadness and extraordinary natural beauty. They also spoke about patients who built fulfilling lives for themselves within their isolation. "It is truly one of the last Hawaiian places," said Bill Evanson, Natural Area Reserve Maui manager for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. "There is so much aloha there."

About 40 other people attended the two Kahului discussions. Their most common recommendations:
- Don't change a thing, unless it's to continue renovating the settlement's historic dorms, homes, meeting places, churches and graveyards.
- Create ocean and wildlife sanctuaries to further protect Kalaupapa's delicate natural environment, and also counter attacks by invasive plants and overpopulation by feral and introduced animals.
- Don't allow it to become commercialized with a "Disneyland atmosphere" or people hawking St. Damien T-shirts and trinkets. "That's totally against what the National Park Service stands for," Prokop said.
- Improve security to prevent visitors from stealing souvenirs, such as pieces of Damien's grave or church, and hire more rangers to hunt down poachers.
- Add more historical markers to tell the story of Kalaupapa as well as the Native Hawaiian people who lived there for 800 years prior to the settlement's establishment in 1866.
- Build an interpretive center and produce an instructional video - that provides historical background, and the do's and don'ts of visiting Kalaupapa - which is a common practice at other federal parks.
- Maintain some kind of quotas for the number of park visitors daily, but eliminate current age restriction for those 16 years old and younger.
- Park officials said the cap is mainly in place now to protect the privacy of the residents. But they added that even if more people were allowed to visit, Kalaupapa's inherently limited infrastructure, notably a shortage of toilets and fresh water, would naturally curb the number of visitors.

At least in the Maui workshops, there seemed to be no renewed talk of Molokai Native Hawaiians moving into the settlement's homes someday or building on Department of Hawaiian Home Lands property within the park. "That would be like living in Auschwitz. It's too sacred a place," said Lloyd Gilliom of Maui, a Native Hawaiian who has family members who live "top side" on Molokai as well as relatives buried at Kalaupapa. It is estimated that at least 8,000 patients and likely many more Native Hawaiians died at Kalaupapa. The park is filled with unmarked and yet-to-be discovered graves, Kalaupapa advocates said.

Kalaupapa has been a national park since 1980 and today has 34 employees and 100 structures. The Park Service was invited to the settlement by the patients, led by "the mayor of Kalaupapa" Richard Marks, who died last year. Currently, the park land is owned by a combination of the federal government and state departments of Land and Natural Resources, Transportation and Hawaiian Home Lands. A sliver is owned by private parties. The Hawaiian Home Lands lease with the park expires in 2041, while the federal government and DLNR are in discussions this year to renew a 20-year lease. The Park Service pays $200,000 a year to lease the land in the settlement, and Prokop said he was confident that that arrangement would continue indefinitely.

More pressing, Prokop said, is a proposal to re-evaluate a 1998 park-boundary study that would add 24,000 acres of the adjacent north-shore cliffs. Much of that property, which stretches to Halawa Valley, is owned now by The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii and the privately owned Pu'u O Hoku Ranch, he said. Some of Wednesday's discussion also revolved around whether the Park Service would allow Molokai Native Hawaiians to continue subsistence hunting and gathering in the park. There appeared to be support for the idea as long as it was monitored closely. Meli Watanuki said she's seen rare and expensive opihi and sea salt marked "From Kalaupapa" being sold at a Honolulu farmers market, which upset most of the evening meeting participants. Most of Kalaupapa is overseen by the Health Department, but as patients have passed away, the state has been spooling down its involvement while the Park Service has been ramping up, Prokop said. "We gotta preserve everything and no change nothing," Meli Watanuki said. That not only means repairing buildings, but also sharing and perpetuating the stories of leprosy patients; Father Damien; his contemporary, Mother Marianne Cope - who also could become a saint someday; as well as Native Hawaiians, she said. "They (the Park Service) know what they do," she said. "I speak from the heart to keep this a federal park. . . . They will never forget."
By Chris Hamilton (chamilton@mauinews.com)
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