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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Damien dies 120 years ago today

In October, 1885, Damien wrote his superior, Father Leonor Fouesnel, in the Hawaiian Islands: "I am a leper. Blessed be the good God. I only ask one favor of you. Send someone to this tomb to be my confessor." (This was three years before Conrardy's arrival.) He wrote his General in Rome, "I have been decorated by the royal Cross of Kalakaua and now the heavier and less honorable cross of leprosy. Our Lord has willed that I be stigmatized with it.... I am still up and taking care of myself a little. I will keep on working...."

The announcement that Damien had leprosy hit his own religious superiors, Father Fouesnel and his bishop, Hermann Koeckemann, like a thunderbolt. Damien was the third Sacred Hearts missionary stricken with leprosy. To prevent further infection, Father Fouesnel forbade Damien to visit the mission headquarters of the Sacred Hearts Fathers in Honolulu. "If you come," Father Superior advised Damien, "you will be relegated to a room which you are not to leave until your departure." Father Fouesnel suggested that if Damien insisted on coming to Honolulu, he stay at the Franciscan Sisters' leper hospital. "But if you go there," the superior counseled, "please do not say Mass. For neither Father Clement nor I will consent to celebrate Mass with the same chalice and the same vestments you have used. The Sisters will refuse to receive Holy Communion from your hands." One can understand the superior's concern. But Damien was being forced, nevertheless, to consume the bitter wine of loneliness to its dregs. He now knew not only the physical sufferings of Christ but the harrowing loneliness and abandonment of his Savior. Damien did go to Honolulu and remained at the leprosarium from July 10 to 16. It was during the time that he arranged with Mother Marianne to come to Molokai. He spoke of his rejection by his own as "the greatest suffering he had ever endured in his life."

The Sorrowful Mother

Catherine De Veuster, Damien's mother, had lived all these years on the occasional letters he wrote to her from Molokai. He had tried to keep her from the news of his leprosy. But inevitably she found out. Someone advised her that the newspapers said, "the flesh of the leper priest of Molokai was falling off in hunks." It was too much for Catherine. Now eighty-three years of age, a widow for thirteen years, the shock of the sufferings of her son broke her old heart. On April 5, 1886, about four in the afternoon, turning her eyes for the last time toward the image of the Blessed Mother and the picture of her son, she bowed her head in that direction and died calmly and peacefully.

Doctor Mouritz, medical attendant at Molokai, charted the progress of the physical dissolution of Damien's body. He writes: "The skin of the abdomen, chest, the back, are beginning to show tubercles, masses of infiltration.... The membranes of the nose, roof of the mouth, pharynx, and larynx are involved; the skin of his cheeks, nose, lips, forehead, and chin are excessively swollen.... His body is becoming emaciated."

An ever-deepening mental distress accompanied Damien's physical dissolution. A severe depression, as well as religious scruples, now plagued the leper priest. Damien felt he was unworthy of heaven. The rejection by his religious superiors left him in near disarray. Once he claimed: "From the rest of the world I received gold and frankincense, but from my own superiors myrrh" (a bitter herb). His superiors complained about Father Conrardy's presence on Molokai. Conrardy was not a religious of the Sacred Hearts, and they felt that Damien had encouraged his presence there as a reproach to their ineffectual efforts to provide him with a companion. Soon after Damien's death, the Sacred Hearts superiors maneuvered Father Conrardy out of the colony.

As death approached, Father Damien engaged in a flurry of activity. He worked as much as his wounded and broken body would permit him. He wrote his bishop, entreating not to be dispensed from the obligation of the Breviary, which he continued to recite as best he could as his eyes failed. The disease invading his windpipe progressed to such an extent that it kept him from sleeping more than an hour or two at night. His voice was reduced to a raucous whisper. Leprosy was in his throat, his lungs, his stomach, and his intestines. After ravaging his body outwardly, it was now destroying him from within.

As the end drew near, there were priests of his own Congregation to hear his confession. They had come with the Franciscan Sisters. On March 30, one of them, a Father Moellers, heard Damien's last confession. The leper priest had requested a funeral pall, which the Sisters made from him and delivered from Honolulu. It arrived the same day. Two more weeks of suffering, and on April 15, 1889, Damien died. It was Holy Week. Some weeks before, Damien had said that the Lord wanted him to spend Easter in heaven.

Once he had written, "The cemetery, the church and rectory form one enclosure; thus at nighttime I am still keeper of this garden of the dead, where my spiritual children lie at rest. My greatest pleasure is to go there to say my by beads and meditate on that unending happiness which so many of them are enjoying." And now it was his turn to occupy a little plot of ground in "his garden of the dead."

He no longer meditated on that unending happiness, but now most surely possessed it. Long ago he had selected the precise spot for his grave amid the two thousand lepers buried in Molokai cemetery. Coffin bearers laid him to rest under his pandanus tree. It was the same tree that had sheltered him the day he read those fateful words: "You may stay as long as your devotion dictates...."
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THE LEPER HERO, FATHER DAMIEN, AT HOME

Dec. 30th. 1888 Church Army Gazette:
The latest notes of an English visitor:
The Church Army Gazette publishes the following letter dated 30th December 1888 received from Mr Edward Clifford, treasurer of the Church Army, who has gone on a visit to the leper settlement at Molokai, Sandwich Islands:

“I have now been here nearly a fortnight. There are 1030 lepers here, well-cared for, not generally suffering pain, and in most cases seeing light-hearted and happy. Their air is very soft and pleasant, even when the wind is high and gusty. Enormous cliffs close in the leper settlement and make it almost inaccessible from the other parts of the island, and the sea is so wild that often even a boat cannot land.

“When I arrived I had to come on shore at a precipitous rock at some distance from the village. Father Damien met me there, having with him about twenty lepers. He gave me a hearty, affectionate welcome, and as it was too rough to have my large case landed I had it unpacked in the boat, and all the presents taken out one by one, handed across the waves and carried by the lepers to Kalawao. The engraving of ‘The Good Shepherd’ from Lady Mount-Temple came first and then the magic lantern [which I have since been three times showing], the Ariston, [a sort of little barrel-organ, with many hymn tunes – the lepers love to turn it], and many pictures and books. Mr Burne-Jones’ beautiful picture I had myself carried by hand all the way from London, and is now hung in Father Damien’s room.

“He is just what you would expect him to be – a simple, sturdy, hard-working, devout man. No job was too menial for him – building, carpentering, tending the sick, washing the dead, and many other such things form part of his daily work. He is always cheerful, often playful, and one of the most truly humble men I ever saw. The leprosy has disfigured him a good deal, but I never feel it anything but a pleasure to look at him; and already the gurium oil which I brought is making a manifest difference in his face and hands, and in his power of sleeping. How far the cure will reach it is, of course, impossible to say. He is such a busy man that I sometimes fear he will not find time to do the medicine full justice. The English affection for him and their sympathy touch him very much indeed. Pray for him, for there must be many times when he is tempted to be discouraged and over-sad at all the terrible cases, bodies and souls, around him. I was very glad to be here at Christmas. You would have enjoyed the hearty way in which the lepers sang ‘O come all ye faithful.’ I have been much interested in an old Christian leper from America who says he can thank God for His kindness and for many great mercies since he came here. He is more happy and contented than many people who have health, wealth and friends, and it has come to him through his illness. Father Damien has told me today that for the first time for months he has been able to sing again.”

Taken from a book published on 5th January 1889
Entitled “Great Thoughts from Master Minds”
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A Saint on Capitol Hill

Posted by Tom Piatak on February 22, 2009
When one reads the new atheists, one gets the impression that the influence of Christianity has been entirely baleful, that Christianity’s contribution to morality has been entirely negative, and that the United States, far from being a Christian country historically, is really the finest flower of the anti-religious Enlightenment, and that we therefore ought to stamp out all public manifestations of Christianity, which will most likely wither away anyway as Americans become as sensible as contemporary Britons and Scandinavians. These peculiar beliefs often find expression in lawsuits trying to suppress all public expressions of Christianity. It is therefore with some hesitation that I point out that there will soon be a saint on Capitol Hill. On Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI announced that the great Flemish missionary to Hawaii, Father Damien of Molokai, one of two men representing that state in Statuary Hall, will be canonized on October 11.
By long custom, each state picks two historical figures to act as its permanent representatives on Capitol Hill, where they are commemorated by a statue. The composition of this collection is one clue that the new atheists have greatly underestimated the impact Christianity has had on America from our earliest days. Of course, virtually all the figures represented in Statuary Hall were practicing Christians. Even more striking, a large number of them were clergymen. In addition to the statue of Damien, visitors to Capitol Hill will find statues of such Protestant ministers as Roger Williams, John Peter Muhlenberg, Jason Lee, and Marcus Whitman, and such Catholic priests as Junipero Serra, Jacques Marquette, and Eusebio Kino, as well as Mother Joseph, a nun who was a missionary in Washington. Lee, Whitman, Serra, Marquette, and Kino were also missionaries, meaning that a calling that is quite out of favor with the new atheists is particularly well represented in Statuary Hall.
That Damien was chosen to represent Hawaii on Capitol Hill is no surprise. Although he worked in Hawaii before it became part of the United States, he has long been a hero to Hawaiians of all religious backgrounds. In the mid 19th century, Hawaii saw a large outbreak of leprosy, and the Hawaiian authorities responded by creating a leper colony at Kalaupapa on remote Molokai. Although this was not the intention of the Hawaiian government, the leper colony on Molokai soon became little more than a place people went to die, in isolation and poverty and a condition approaching anarchy. When the Bishop of Honolulu asked for a volunteer to go to Molokai to minister to the lepers for a few months, Damien went, and stayed for the rest of his 16 years. Damien cared for the lepers in every aspect of their being, cleansing their wounds and bandaging their sores, building coffins so they could have a decent burial (he built some 2,000 by hand), offering Mass and hearing their confessions, and attempting to model for them the love of Christ. He also brought some much needed order, building a home for children and organizing a variety of activities that helped bring hope and purpose to the people exiled on Kalaupapa. Damien identified completely with those in his care, referring to “we lepers” in his sermons long before he contracted leprosy himself. Damien’s example attracted other volunteers and more advanced medical care, so that slowly Kalaupapa was transformed for the benefit of those who lived there.
Damien did have detractors, including Rev. Hyde, a Presbyterian clergyman in Honolulu who wrote to a colleague in Australia following Damien’s death dismissing him as a “coarse, dirty man, head-strong and bigoted.” After Hyde’s remarks were published by his colleague in Australia, Robert Louis Stevenson, who had visited both Hyde in his comfortable Honolulu home and Molokai after Damien’s death, and who was also a Presbyterian, wrote a masterful open letter refuting each of Hyde’s charges and defending the dead priest: “But, sir, when we have failed, and another has succeeded; when we have stood by, and another has stepped in; when we sit and grow bulky in our charming mansions, and a plain, uncouth peasant steps into the battle, under the eyes of God, and succours the afflicted, and consoles the dying, and is himself afflicted in his turn, and dies upon the field of honour - the battle cannot be retrieved as your unhappy irritation has suggested. It is a lost battle, and lost for ever. One thing remained to you in your defeat - some rags of common honour; and these you have made haste to cast away.” Stevenson accurately predicted to Rev. Hyde that “if that world at all remember you, on the day when Damien of Molokai shall be named a Saint, it will be in virtue of one work: your letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage.” Stevenson also precisely delineated the point that separated him from Hyde: “you are one of those who have an eye for faults and failures; that you take a pleasure to find and publish them; and that, having found them, you make haste to forget the overvailing virtues and the real success which had alone introduced them to your knowledge. It is a dangerous frame of mind.” Indeed it is. One wishes that Christopher Hitchens had pondered Stevenson’s words before he embarked on his journalistic jihad against Mother Teresa, who, like Damien, won the respect of the country in which she worked by caring for lepers. One wishes the new atheists would ponder those words today, as they set about attempting to tear down what Christianity has contributed to our civilization.
In fact, it is clear that what motivated Damien to do what no one else was willing to do was his desire to emulate Christ. The definitive biography of Damien is Gavan Daws’ Holy Man: Father Damien of Molokai. Daws describes Damien as “an ordinary man who made the most extraordinary moral choices again and again and again.” When asked by a PBS interviewer about writing the book, Daws noted that he had come to believe that Damien was a saint, even though “I’m not a practicing Christian, and I’m by definition not a Catholic.” But, Daws added, “look what he did. Time and time again, he does things that nobody else is prepared to do, at the risk of his physical life, in the interest of what he always called the imitation of Christ. That’s what he did.” And that’s why all Americans can be glad that there soon will be a saint on Capitol Hill.
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Locals Rejoice in Hawaii

Bishop Larry Silva from Hawaii, flanked by the Superiors General of the Brothers and Sisters of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts (SSCC - Picpus), along with General Councillors of our Congregation and the Provincial of Damien's home Province of Flanders (front rt.), in St. Peter's Square following the Consistory announcing the canonisation of our Brother Damien of Molokai.


Vatican Consistory
Sat. Feb. 21st. 2009




Hawaii KHON TV announcing Damien Canonisation - Watch this clip here >>>>>>>>

Hawaii

Announcement of the Canonization of Fr. Damien De Veuster SSCC
Rome, Sunday October 11th. 2009

Hawaii KITV Announcement of Damien Canonisation - Watch this clip here >>>>>>>>

Announcement of the Canonization of Fr. Damien De Veuster SSCC

Rome October 11th. 2009

In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict XVI, at center, meets cardinals in the Clementine hall at The Vatican, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009. The Vatican says Rev. Damien de Veuster, a 19th century Belgian priest who ministerd to leprosy patients in Hawaii will be declared a saint Oct. 11. (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano, ho) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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To the Whole Congregation February 21, 2009

Announcement of the Canonization of Fr. Damien De Veuster SSCC
Rome October 11th. 2009

It is with great joy that we write to tell you that the Holy Father has just announced the date of the canonization of our brother Damien. It will take place in Rome on Oct. 11th 2009.

Now that we know the date, for which we have waited so long, the whole Congregation can intensify its preparation for this joyous and inspiring event, a preparation that has already begun in many places. Damien is a gift of God’s goodness to the Congregation, the Church and all of humanity.

At the time of the canonization the General Governments will host three days of celebration in Rome: a vigil of prayer on October 10, 2009 (the evening before), a festive gathering the day of the celebration at St. Peter’s and a Mass of Thanksgiving on the following day, October 12, 2009. We will send you more information when we have the details.

As part of our interior preparation, both personal and communal, we offer two prayers, one addressed to God the Father and the other to Damien. We ask you to use them and share them with others:

God of mercy,
We thank you for Damien,
brother to all,
father to lepers,
child of the Sacred Hearts.

You inspired in him
a passionate love for the life,
health and dignity
of those he found fallen
by the side of the road.

Thank you, for like Jesus
he knew how to love until the end.
Thank you, for like Mary
he knew how to give himself without reserve.

Thank you Father, for through Damien
you still inspire holiness
and passion for your kingdom.
Amen

Damien, brother on the journey,
happy and generous missionary,
who loved the Gospel more than your own life,
who for love of Jesus left your family, your homeland, your security and your dreams,

Teach us to give our lives
with a joy like yours,
to be lepers with the lepers of our world,
to celebrate and contemplate the Eucharist
as the source of our own commitment.

Help us to love to the very end
and, in the strength of the Spirit, to persevere in compassion
for the poor and forgotten
so that we might be
good disciples of Jesus and Mary.
Amen

May the Lord bless us with that same joy that filled the heart of Damien and may he pour forth on us his Spirit of love and courage so that we might respond generously to the gift of our brother, who died joyful to be a child of the Sacred Hearts.


Fraternally in the Sacred Hearts,

Sr. Rosa M. Ferreiro, sscc
Fr. Javier Alverez-Ossario, sscc
Superiors General

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10 Blesseds to Be Canonized

List Includes "Lepers' Apostle" Father Damián
VATICAN CITY, FEB. 16, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The Church will soon have 10 more canonized saints.The Holy See reported that a public consistory of cardinals will take place Saturday to determine dates for the canonization celebrations of the newly recognized saints. Among the group is Father Damián de Veuster, known as the apostle of the lepers of Molokai, Hawaii.
The 10 to be canonized are:
-- Blessed Zygmunt Szcesny Felinski, former Polish archbishop of Warsaw and founder of the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary.
-- Blessed Arcangelo Tadini, Italian priest and founder of the Congregation of the Worker Sisters of the Holy House of Nazareth.
-- Blessed Francisco Coll y Guitart, Spanish Dominican priest and founder of the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
-- Blessed Jozef Damien de Veuster, Belgian priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. The decree recognizing the miracle was approved July 3, 2008.
-- Blessed Bernardo Tolomei, Italian abbot and founder of the Congregation of the Blessed Virgin of Monte Oliveto. The decree recognizing the miracle was adopted on July 3, 2008.
-- Blessed Rafael Arnáiz Barón, Spanish oblate friar of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance.
-- Blessed Nuno de Santa Maria Álvares Pereira, Portuguese religious of the Order of Friars of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. The decree recognizing the miracle was adopted on July 3, 2008.
-- Blessed Gertrude Caterina Comensoli, Italian founder of the Institute of Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. The decree recognizing the miracle was adopted on March 17, 2008.
-- Blessed Marie de la Croix (born Jeanne) Jugan, French founder of the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Poor.
-- Blessed Caterina Volpicelli, Italian foundress of the Institute of Handmaidens of the Sacred Heart.
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Countdown to Saint Damien

Damien's tomb in Louvain, Belgium
Honolulu Advertiser Feb. 5th. - Now we know when we'll know the date of Father Damien's canonization. The Sacred Hearts priest who served Hansen's disease patients at Kalaupapa is expected to be made Hawaii's first saint sometime this fall, most likely in October. Bishop Larry Silva received a partial calendar of Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming liturgical calendar, which included this entry: "Saturday, Feb. 21 at 11 a.m. in the Clementine Hall, consistory for certain causes of canonization." That would be 11 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20, Hawaii time. "It is assumed that this will be the day that Father Damien's canonization date will be announced," wrote Diocese of Honolulu spokesman Patrick Downes in an email. "This is not the day of canonization." To keep up with the countdown, check out the Honolulu Advertiser's new blog, Countdown to St. Damien: http://countdowntostdamien.honadvblogs.com/
By Mary Kaye Ritz
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Honolulu Bishop to Attend Damien Announcement

Roman Catholic Church to canonise Damien as a Saint.
KITV Honolulu Feb. 13th: Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu is to travel to Rome this coming week to attend an announcement on when Father Damien will be canonized a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.The date is expected to be announced Feb. 21. Silva was invited to Rome by the Rev. Alfred Bell who is a member of Damien's order, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Damien arrived in Hawaii from his native Belgium in 1864. Nine years later he began ministering to leprosy patients on Molokai, where thousands had been banished amid an epidemic in Hawaii. After contracting the disease, he died April 15, 1889, at age 49.Damien was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995. Last July, Pope Benedict XVI recognized a second miracle attributed to Damien's intercession.
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U.S. House Considers Bill Authorizing Kalaupapa Monument

Honolulu Advertiser Feb. 12th: The proposal for a memorial at Kalaupapa National Historical Park on Molokai is included in an omnibus public lands bill. It was due to come up yesterday, but the vote was pushed back by economic stimulus bill negotiations. It may be voted on later this month. Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is spread by direct person-to-person contact, although it's not easily transmitted. It can cause skin lesions, mangle fingers and toes, and lead to blindness.
The Hawaiian Kingdom started exiling leprosy patients to the remote, desolate Kalaupapa peninsula in 1866 amid a widespread outbreak of the illness. Many of the early exiles had to scrounge for shelter, clothes and food because Kalaupapa had little existing infrastructure when they arrived. The Republic of Hawaii continued the isolation policy after the overthrow of the monarchy. The U.S. territory, then the state, followed suit. Today, fewer than two dozen patients live there.
Leprosy became curable by sulfone drugs in the 1940s and patients have been free to leave the settlement since 1969. Even so, many have chosen to stay because Kalaupapa has become their home. Families and supporters have been pushing for the establishment of a memorial for years. They envision a monument spelling out the names of all 8,000 sent to Kalaupapa, giving relatives a place to honor their ancestors. Only 1,300 people buried at Kalaupapa have tombstones, meaning an estimated 6,700 were buried in unmarked graves. "I've been with family members who were searching for graves of their ancestors and they can't find anything. And it's heartbreaking to them," said Valerie Monson, secretary of Ka Ohana O Kalaupapa, an advocacy group for leprosy patients that will build the monument. The memorial is also designed to honor those who went through great hardship so the rest of Hawaii wouldn't be exposed to leprosy. "The people of Kalaupapa made sacrifices by leaving their families and going to Kalaupapa because they wanted to protect the general community," Monson said. "These guys are heroes and they should be honored."
The bill doesn't appropriate any funds to build a monument. Instead it says Ka Ohana O Kalaupapa will be responsible for raising money for its construction. Monson said the group never expected Congress would appropriate funds, and had always planned to raise money itself. It's expected passage is bittersweet, however, as it comes just after longtime Kalaupapa resident and Ka Ohana O Kalaupapa president Kuulei Bell died Sunday at the age of 76. Bell wanted the monument so the names of her family members who died at Kalaupapa, including her grandfather, father, two aunts and husband, would be remembered, Monson said. Bell wanted her great-great grandchildren to know what she did, Monson said. The House last year approved a bill authorizing the monument, but its passage was held up as Congress dealt with the financial crisis.
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Canonization of Father Damien

On Saturday February 21st, at 11am, the members of the General Government of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts have received invitations to be present at the Vatican Consistory when the Pope will announce the dates of the next canonizations. Our expectation is that the date of Damien's canonisation will be announced at this consistory.
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Worldwide call to Ban use of the Word "leper"

Worldwide call to ban use of word 'leper' Mr Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the Elimination of Leprosy and Japanese Government Goodwill Ambassador for the Human Rights of People Affected by Leprosy, has called for an end to the common usage of the word "leper", which he describes as "an extremely damaging term."Speaking at the launch in London, of the fourth Global Appeal to End Stigma and Discrimination Against People Affected by Leprosy, held to coincide with World Leprosy Day, he said that the word "carries the meaning of a pariah, or social outcast. Once that label has been applied it sticks for the rest of a person's life. The stigma remains even after he or she has been cured."Mr Sasakawa said that people affected by leprosy have demanded that the term not be used. "Unfortunately its use continues to this day in the newsmedia, including the UK media, impacting on the dignity and human rights of people with the disease."He appealed for an end of the use of this word. "Let it no longer be used as a term of derision and exclusion," he added.This year's Global Appeal has been publicly supported by leaders of religious faiths from around the world - appealing to the power and influence of religion to change deeply discriminatory attitudes in society as experienced by people affected by leprosy. Sixteen religious leaders including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, the Chairman of the Indonesian Council of Ulamas, the President of the Japan Buddhist Federation, the Chief Rabbi of Israel, the President of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care at the Vatican and the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, have signed the Appeal.Mr Sasakawa, who is also Chairman of the Nippon Foundation, pointed out that "since an affective cure became available in the mid-1980s, 16 million people have been cured of leprosy worldwide. But, if we include family members, perhaps as many as 100 million people face leprosy-related discrimination in some form, often on a daily basis."He added that his "lobbying of the United Nations has resulted in the UN Human Rights Council passing a unanimous resolution in June 2008, to eliminate stigma and discrimination against leprosy-affected people."The resolution was sponsored by 59 countries, including the UK.However "countries including the United States and the United Kingdom have regulations restricting the issue of work or residence permits to people with leprosy", which is in contravention of the resolution.Mr Sasakawa said that removing "discrimination from society requires the co-operation of society's most influential members. Therefore I ask the religious leaders who have signed this year's Global Appeal to convey its message to their believers and followers."
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Father Damien on TV

Father Damien did the most important work of his life in an isolated Hawaiian coastal colony, cut off from the rest of the island by steep cliffs, where people suffering from leprosy were cast off from society.
The stocky Belgian missionary priest never sought celebrity or fame. But what Father Damien de Veuster did in Kalaupapa, Molokai became a story of international impact. Later this year, he's expected to be canonized.
Coming up Sunday (Jan. 25) at 6pm, the TV show Religion & Ethics Newsweekly on PBS Hawaii looks back at the remarkable ministry of the man who spent more than a decade caring for Hansen's Disease patients who were banished to the settlement to die.
Damien's legacy lives in Hawaii, where it's not difficult to find families who remember a loved one who was seized by the government and who disappeared, to Kalaupapa. At the time, the disease was believed to be a sign of uncleanliness or sin. Some families lost a second loved one, when a spouse or other relative voluntarily went with the patient to serve as a caregiver, or kokua. Back then, it was typically a trip from which there was no return.
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Vatican Statement for World Leprosy Day- Jan 25th.

A statement by Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, on the occasion of the 56th World Leprosy Day, which will be observed this Sunday:

This 56th World Day is thus a suitable opportunity to offer the human community correct, broad and capillary information about leprosy, about the devastating effects that it can have on people's bodies if they are not treated and on families and on society, and to stimulate the individual and collective duty to engage in active fraternal solidarity.Basing itself on the example of Jesus Christ, the physician of bodies and souls, the Church has always dedicated special care to people afflicted by leprosy. Down the centuries it has been present through the institutions of Congregations of men and women religious, and through voluntary health care organisations made up of the lay faithful, thereby contributing in a radical way to the full social and communal integration of such people.The Blessed Father Damian de Veuster, the untiring and exemplary apostle of our brothers and sisters afflicted by Hansen's disease, a lighthouse of faith and love, is the symbol of all those consecrated to Christ with religious vows who still today dedicate their lives to such people, making available all their resources for the overall wellbeing of those afflicted who are by leprosy in every part of the world.These, together with Blessed Damian, are writing the most beautiful pages of the missionary history of the Church. Inseparably linked to evangelisation in their care for the sick, they proclaim that the redemption of Jesus Christ, and his salvific grace, reach the whole of man in his human condition in order to associate him to the glorious resurrection of Christ.At their side very many volunteers and men of good will are involved in the organisation of solidarity at a practical level, making means and financial resources available to research institutes so that they can create increasingly effective forms of treatment by which to combat Hansen's disease.
Link to full Vatican Statement
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Ireland and Leprosy

Vincent Barry (1908-1975) was originally from Cork but studied Chemistry at University College Dublin (UCD) and graduated in 1928.
Like most countries around the world, Ireland has a long history of leprosy. St Stephen's Green in Dublin was once a leprosy colony, and occasional "leper squints" remain in churches - holes in the wall where lepers who had been ostracised from society could peer in at ceremonies. We know that by 550 A.D. leprosy reached Ireland. Incidence of the disease grew enormously during the Crusades. It affected huge numbers of people in northern Europe, possibly a quarter of the population at one time. That percentage was drastically reduced by the Black Plague, which killed many people already infected and weakened by leprosy.

In 1873, the year Father Damien arrived at Kalawao, a Dr. Gerhard Armauer Hansen in Norway made a breakthrough discovery. He identified the cause of leprosy—a bacillus known today as Mycobacterium leprae. The discovery that leprosy was caused by a microorganism was the first step in treatment of the disease. It also led to social changes because the disease was no longer thought to be hereditary and the belief that God punished people with leprosy was weakened. Despite the promise of Goto baths, chaulmoogra oil and other treatments, a real cure wasn’t discovered until the 1940s when sulfone drugs were developed at the US Public Health Service National Leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana. The World Health Organization estimates there are approximately 1.15 million registered cases of Hansen’s disease around the world in 55 countries.

While leprosy has been eliminated here, Ireland has left a lasting mark on the fight against the disease because an Irish chemist discovered part of the cure. It was while working on tuberculosis in the 1950s Vincent C. Barry and his team at Trinity College Dublin synthesised a compound called B663 (clofazimine) that proved effective against the bacterium that causes leprosy. His research paved the way for the multi-drug antibiotic therapy that the World Health Organisation (WHO) currently provides free to patients in regions of the world where leprosy is still endemic.

Dr Vincent Barry's discovery was recognised in his centenary year at an event at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin on December 9th.
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Kalaupapa leader Richard Marks dies

Tour operator was educator, advocate recognized by pope.
Maui News: Dec. 12th. - Kalaupapa resident and advocate Richard Marks, who helped end the state's quarantine of leprosy patients and make the settlement a National Historic Park, died Tuesday at Kalaupapa Hospital. He was 79.

Marks was inspired by Father Damien to become an advocate for Kalaupapa, said his wife, Gloria. His activism led him to travel the world, gain a private audience with Pope John Paul II, and meet Mother Teresa. At home he operated Damien Tours, a bus tour of the settlement he started to help educate visitors about the history of Father Damien and Kalaupapa. "I'd like people to remember the person he was," Gloria Marks said Thursday. "He's not doing it for himself. He's doing it for the settlement." Services are pending in Honolulu. Mililani Memorial Park and Mortuary is handling the arrangements. Gloria Marks said another service would be held at St. Francis Church, followed by burial in a family plot.

Molokai rancher and tour operator Buzzy Sproat said Richard Marks loved to travel the world, from Rome to Las Vegas, and study about the history of the settlement and Father Damien. "He really got into it," he said. On his Damien Tours, Marks was both educator and entertainer, Sproat said. "He talked about what Father Damien did for the people, but he liked to joke about things too," he said. Gloria Marks, 70, said she promised her husband she'd continue the tour as long as she was able. "I'll go another eight years if I can," she said.

While Richard Marks became a passionate protector of Kalaupapa later in life, he was angry and restless when he was first sent to the isolated Molokai peninsula after being diagnosed with leprosy, now called Hansen's disease, Gloria Marks said. "He used to run away. He'd go up the hill. How he got caught he'd call the taxi," she laughed. Born in Puunene on Maui, he was in the Merchant Marine Service when he was diagnosed at age 21. He was already familiar with exile in Kalaupapa, having had other members of his family, including a grandmother, shipped to the north Molokai peninsula. Marks was once locked up in a hospital for his attempts to escape, and even went on a hunger strike in protest, Gloria said. Later on, he became "mellow" and was at peace with his experience, she said. He became an outspoken advocate for the residents of the settlement, serving as sheriff for the community and encouraging visitors taking his Damien Tours to contribute to the community's needs.

Gloria Marks recalled that her husband boldly proclaimed, "I am a leper," in a controversial 1968 magazine article, and went on to talk about the injustice of continuing to isolate patients. The Department of Health threatened to sue him over the interview, she said, but a year later the Legislature repealed the state's 104-year-old quarantine policy. "He was the one who opened up the door," she said. In 1996, he was recognized by the Damien-Dutton Society for Leprosy Aid for his efforts to educate people about the disease and about the history of Kalaupapa. "They have all the worst ideas about leprosy being such a contagious disease, which is plain nonsense," he said in a subsequent interview with The Associated Press. "Over 1,100 people have come here to work since Father Damien and Father Damien was the only one who got the disease."

Gloria Marks said her husband was most proud of his efforts to have Kalaupapa established as a National Historic Park. He worked with the late U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink, who introduced the legislation that brought the settlement under the management of the National Park Service in 1980. Gloria Marks said Richard wanted the enclave protected for the future, but didn't want to wait for the state government to do something about it. "It's to preserve it, for when we're gone," she said. Richard Marks was also an advocate for the sainthood of Father Damien and Mother Marianne Cope, who both lived among the patients at Kalaupapa in the 1800s to provide spiritual and physical comfort. Richard Marks was elated over the anticipated canonization of Father Damien, and was looking forward to traveling to Rome for the occasion in early 2009. He'd even gotten his passport renewed for the trip, his wife said. But while Marks may have dreamed big for his little village, not all his ideas came to pass. Gloria Marks said her husband always wanted to see a cable car link the cliff-locked community with the outside world, but he was told the idea wouldn't work because of the salty air.
By ILIMA LOOMIS
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Father Damien, Citizen of the World, 1840-1889 - Joseph de Veuster

In 1889, the year of Father Damien's death, a fund was established in his memory in London, under the patronage of the Prince of Wales. The inauguration of the fund, the forerunner of the British Leprosy Relief Association (LEPRA), was soon followed by many other initiatives elsewhere in the world.


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Awaiting Damien's Canonization

Honolulu Advertiser: Nov. 24th. - "People can sing these songs easily," explained the director of music for St. John Vianney Church, his hands curving like an arc over the keyboard. As a photographer snapped away, the flash from the camera illuminated streaks of sunlight in Dietrich Varez's painting of Damien hovering just above Mondoy, as if the priest's path to heaven itself was pulsating. Similarly, Hawai'i's Roman Catholic community is lit up with excitement as canonization looms for Father Damien, the Belgian priest who is revered for dedication to serving those suffering from Hansen's disease on Moloka'i. It's been a long road, but the feast at the end is beginning to take shape.

Bishop Larry Silva has created a commission to oversee Island-based efforts for Damien and Mother Marianne Cope, both of whom are on the path to sainthood. Committees are looking into myriad details: fundraising; how to get the word out; what will occur back in the Islands for those who can't make the journey to Rome for Damien's canonization ceremony, expected in 2009. No decisions can be set in ink until the date of the ceremony is decided by Pope Benedict XVI. An announcement isn't expected until February. "This is the calm before the storm," said Silva. "People are anticipating, the excitement is building. We're kind of waiting and doing what we can in the meantime. When the date is announced, we'll go into high gear. "Once a date is set, then we'll have the details on travel." The papal master of ceremonies has informed the Hawai'i group that it is customary to meet with pilgrim groups the day after a canonization, Silva said. "Hopefully, that will happen."

While 300 to 400 are expected to make the trek from Hawai'i to Rome, you can't book a plane seat or schedule a tour without a start date. "It's a tricky question," said Seawind Tours' Randy King, who's handling tour duties. "We can't do much with it until the pope decides." King is surveying likely participants about their dream trip, finding out about accessibility for the disabled and, especially, educating the masses that when in Rome, you do as the Romans do, i.e., walk cobblestone streets and take public transportation. Luckily for King, he's arranged Damien tours before. Twice. The first trip to Belgium, back in 1994, took more than 300 people, including Kalaupapa patients, to what was supposed to be Damien's beatification. But Pope John Paul II's nasty fall and subsequent broken hip turned that "beatification" into a "pilgrimage." The next year the beatification was held in Belgium with about 200 from Hawai'i in attendance. A halau attended both events, as did some of Kalaupapa's Hansen's disease patients. "We had a lot of fun with them," said King. "We made sure they were treated very special." The number of Kalaupapa patients who can travel is shrinking, but this time King expects an even bigger crowd. About 100 people already have registered. "It's a mix of the community so far É mostly Catholics," he said. "A guy yesterday called, and asked, 'Do I have to be Catholic to go?' I told him, 'No. (Damien) was for the good of all people.' "

King's goals for the trip are lofty. "We know what works for the masses, but we want to make this a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and hit as many people's (dreams) as possible," he said. "We'll try to be as flexible as possible. Most have never been to Europe." To accomplish that, he's been surveying churchgoers as they pour out of Sunday services at St. Augustine's, where he attends, and asking those who signed up for suggestions. Nancy Berry, who is in her last year as head of Ho'ala School in Wahiawa, hopes there's some leeway in the tour. One way or the other, she's making the trip. "Sign me up!" she said. "I saw it in the paper last week, and I immediately (thought) I'm there." King expects to arrange visits to the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Museum, the ruins of the Coloseum, and Rome's catacombs. And there will be a daily Mass. "Right now, we're looking at one hotel to house everybody, but that depends on the date," he said, then added how beautiful St. Peter's Square looks in the morning light: "We hope to be close enough to walk."

The bishop will return from Rome with a very special piece of luggage, one that warrants its own seat. "When we get back, I will have the relic with me of Father Damien," said Silva. The relic, or piece of Damien's remains, is expected to be the heel. Background: In 1936, Damien's body was taken to Belgium long after his death at Kalaupapa in 1889, but a relic was requested and granted during the beatification. The remains of his right hand made the return and were interred in his original grave beside his church, St. Philomena's, in 1995. It was carried in a special koa box, which will be used again to transport this relic. "The plan is to take it to different islands, and make it available for veneration," Silva continued. "Ultimately, we'll have it at the cathedral, which is in the process of renovation. We plan to have a shrine. It would have the relic, as well as a relic of Mother Marianne. "Of course, it will take a few years before we're done." The bishop hasn't been able to get a lot of answers yet, such as whether "liturgical movements" like hula will be allowed, if an oli can be chanted or whether Hawaiian music — like that which Mondoy is composing — can be included in the ceremony. "I am not the postulator of the cause," said Silva. "My understanding is, the postulator does most of (the liturgy). In fact, I e-mailed the pope's master of ceremonies and asked questions. He e-mailed back and said basically, I need to talk to the postulator."

The postulator general, or primary advocate in charge of the case, is the Rev. Alfred Bell of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in Rome. He was appointed in August. The Revs. Lane Akiona and Chris Keahi, Sacred Hearts fathers based in Hawai'i, are coordinating with the bishop as well. During the canonization, a tapestry bearing the likeness of Damien will be unveiled; that's being handled by the Sacred Hearts fathers, and will be completed in Belgium. Their order also requested and was granted permission for the renaming of the Catholic community on Moloka'i, one parish with four churches, for Damien. When a new church in Kaunakakai is built to replace St. Sophia's, which used to be the main church, it will be named St. Damien.

About a dozen Hansen's disease patients hope to make the trip for the canonization, said Sister Alicia Damien Lau. "The electricity is in the air," she said. "It's a good thing, and it's a scary thing. So chicken skin." Tempering their joy is the realization that their friends didn't live to see the day. Four patients have died in the past year, Lau noted. "That's hitting everybody," Lau said. "Everybody is feeling the impact of aging with complex medical problems. When I talked and asked them if they wanted to go to Rome, the question is, 'Can I go?' " Nearly all who can make the trip will bring family or companions. The ones who can't? "Their heart wants to be there," Lau said. To offset the cost of their transportation, the bishop's commission has established a bank account for donations. Lau knows other Kalaupapa regulars — medical staff, people from the National Park Service — hope to be Rome-bound, too. Lau said Silva will be very sensitive to those who aren't able to make the trip. "The bishop plans to bring the relic to Kalaupapa first," she said. They may not miss it completely, if Venny Villapando, who's on the bishop's commission, has his way. He's made contact with Eternal Word Television Network to learn more about the simulcast. In similar circumstances, Villapando taped a recent canonization and Mass aired on the Eternal Word network, noting that there's a 12-hour time shift. "There was also a repeat broadcast," said Villapando. "I'm keeping tabs." Villapando quakes at the thought that the canonization might occur at 3 p.m in Rome, which is exactly half a day ahead of Hawai'i. "If that happens, we're in trouble," Villapando said. If all goes well, the Damien simulcast will start at 10 p.m. local time. The commission is debating whether to have a viewing party that night or the next day during a repeat broadcast — at a large venue or several smaller venues.
By Mary Kaye Ritz
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A Lifetime Friend

Father Joseph Hendriks poses in front of paintings of Father Damien at Kalaupapa that are hanging at St. Patrick Monastery in Kaimuki. He was formerly pastor of Kalaupapa and came from Belgium. Hendriks died Nov. 3 after years of battling cancer.

Father Joe Hendriks told me, "I consider Damien to be a lifetime friend."

Honolulu Star Bulletin: Nov. 15th. - It was a spark amidst rambling summertime conversations with the retired Catholic priest. The interviews were an exercise in a continuing look into the story of Father Damien DeVeuster, whose service to some of God's humblest, neediest people has been the subject of hero stories since he lived and died in Kalaupapa in 1889. Father Joe was one of hundreds of men who chose to become priests because of the example of Damien. Like the 19th-century priest, Hendriks was born in Belgium and came to Hawaii as a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a missionary order that has provided pastors and teachers to Hawaii since the first French Catholic priests stepped ashore in 1827. Here this story swerves off track, becoming all about Damien, who is on the short list to be named a saint by the Catholic Church, probably by next year at this time. Or, off we go on a tangent about the Catholic pioneers and the role of faith in the lives of people in his times and ours. That's how the conversations went with Father Joe. He wasn't at ease talking about himself. He prepared a list of dates in his personal time line. If prodded, he'd philosophize in brief. He was a little bit better with anecdotes. What he did say was that he would not live to see Damien canonized. And he was right. Father Joe Hendriks died Nov. 3 at the St. Patrick Monastery in Kaimuki after years of battling cancer. If he had had his choice, he would have lived out his life as pastor in Kalaupapa, the job he held for seven years until the disease -- and his superiors -- forced him to retire to Honolulu in 2006.

Hendriks spent 57 of his 86 years in service at parishes on Oahu, Kauai, Maui, Molokai and Lanai. The pinnacle of his vocation was walking in Damien's footsteps on the remote peninsula where leprosy patients were exiled. When Hendriks said Mass, there were former leprosy patients in the congregation, along with people from the state Department of Health and National Park Service who maintain the settlement. The rectory and St. Francis Church were built after Damien died and the population shifted from the east to west side. But the church that Damien built, St. Philomena's Church in Kalawao, is still the scene of services on special occasions. "The door was open at the rectory. Father Joe welcomed people inside his house," said Meli Watanuki, who with her husband, Randy, tends the altar and church. "Sometimes we'd go talk story to him. He was really good to us, to all the patients." "He loved to entertain people," she said, and the parish hall became the scene of community celebrations for church feast days and people's birthdays. She recalled how Hendriks, almost daily, welcomed visitors from around the world to the church. He told about Damien and Mother Marianne Cope to people who came on a day trip, escorted to several spots by Damien Tours guides. Hendriks said he received about 200 Christmas cards each year from people who had visited.

Watanuki holds another memory of Hendriks from the day in 2005 when Cope's exhumed remains were taken out of Kalaupapa. The bones of the Franciscan nun, also a candidate for sainthood for serving patients in Kalaupapa, are now enshrined at Franciscan headquarters in Syracuse, N.Y. "When they put the box on a truck in front of the church, he stood by the step and he cried. He was a soft heart," Watanuki said. Patrick Downes, editor of the Catholic Herald, said Hendriks provided some of the best items ever for the parish news roundup in each edition. "They were personal, affectionate notes about parishioners, or anecdotes about people visiting from far away who were called by Damien," he said. "He typed them on his old manual typewriter, with pencil corrections, and mailed them. Every one was a tidbit of life from Kalaupapa."

When he was ordained in 1948, much of Belgium's missionary zeal was aimed toward the Congo, its colony. But he and a handful of classmates were picked for Hawaii. "God has taken care of me my whole life," he said. Many of the others were homesick serving so far from their European roots, but "God made it easy for me; I was never homesick." He became a naturalized U.S. citizen five years after he arrived. Though fluent in English, he never lost the guttural Belgian accent. While he was pastor of St. Patrick Church in 1976, Hendriks created a small Damien museum, opening up the monastery chapel to give visitors a look at the few artifacts that were kept there: Mass vestments, Communion chalice, a pipe. The museum was expanded and moved to the Waikiki parish for access by tourists. It has since been closed.

People already know what Damien did, so why bother with the bureaucratic business it takes to declare him a saint? "It's a way for people of this century to hear about him," he said. "Hopefully people will be inspired and say, 'That's the way to be. He's for sure in heaven, and I want to be there, too." A miraculous healing ascribed to Damien's intercession with God was the final criterion to achieve sainthood, but, Hendriks was asked, why didn't God heal the leprosy victims or the priests who served them? "Getting well on earth is not our purpose. To get to heaven is more important," the pastor said. "If you pray for something and nothing happens, God may have different answers. "There are many miracles in our lives. I believe God will take care of us without our expectations. "To pray is not to tell God what you want, blah blah blah, it's to be in God's presence. The number of words doesn't make it a prayer; it's to love God with your whole heart. ... That's the spirit of prayer." Bishop Larry Silva will preside at the funeral Mass for Hendriks at 11 a.m. next Saturday at St. Patrick Church.
By Mary Adamski
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No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise. Mozlink

Leprosy Still Prevalent in US

Nov. 9th 2008: A new study

has revealed that leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is still prevalent in the United States."Approximately 150 cases are diagnosed each year with 3,000 people in the U.S. currently being treated for leprosy,” says Dr. James Krahenbuhl, director of the Health Resources Service Administration’s National Hansen’s Disease Program (NHDP) in Baton Rouge, LA.

"We believe there are more cases of leprosy not identified due to the lack of awareness about the disease among physicians in the U.S., which is leading to misdiagnosis and wrong treatments for patients who are left to suffer with the debilitating damage caused by this disease," he adds.

While the root cause of the transmission of leprosy has yet to be determined, it is known to be a chronic disease that slowly attacks the peripheral nervous system and motor skills, often leading to disability and disfigurement.

Since the onset of infection and symptoms can take three to 10 years, according to experts, it is very difficult to find the origin of where or how people acquire the disease.

Leprosy can be fully treated with medicine when diagnosed in early stages, but nerve damage cannot be reversed once the disease has advanced.

The NHDP says that many doctors are not familiar with the disease because most people affected by leprosy in the U.S. are immigrants in poor communities who primarily seek treatment in free clinics or emergency rooms, and thus doctors mistake the skin lesions of leprosy for a fungus or ringworm and treat it with a topical cream.

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St. Damien Next Year?

Here’s an interesting article from the San Francisco Chonicle that takes note of the active cause of canonization for Blessed Damien de Veuster, better known as Damien of Molokai. This past summer, the final miracle necessary for his canonization was approved by the Vatican, and this article suggests that Damien’s sainthood may come “most likely late next year.”

I had not realized that the Kalaupapa Peninsula, the area of Molokai Island where Fr. Damien lived, ministered, and died, is still home to some leprosy patients, and it takes an approved permit to visit there, out of respect for the residents’ privacy. The article notes that Hansen’s Disease (as leprosy is known today)

has been curable since the development of sulfone drugs in the 1940s, and people treated with drugs aren’t contagious. Hawaii did away with the exile policy in 1969.

Patients sent here before 1969 are free to leave, but many have chosen to stay because it has become their home.

The state has promised to keep the settlement open and care for patients until the last one dies. The youngest is now 67.

In related news, a local article published yesterday notes that a new church dedicated to Fr. Damien is about to be built on Molokai Island.

Damien will be a wonderful addition to the Church’s roll of the saints. In the meantime, Blessed Damien of Molokai, pray for us!
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Unconditional Love

Hi Everyone,
I want to talk about Unconditional Love today, in particular a Cause I have been passionately committed to: the canonization of the Belgian born priest, Father Damien. They called him the hero of Molokai because this incredible man was the only one who volunteered to service Molokai when death was almost certain. He defied the Vatican’s orders not to have direct physical contact with his flock and went to the Hawaiian island of Molokai, a leper colony in 1873 to serve the sick and dying. Single handedly. Hundreds of islanders were banished to this island during the terrible plague traced to a ship load of Chinese farm workers brought to the islands and causing widespread panic and disease.

I have been devoted, along with many others to the Cause of seeing this Blessed man declared a saint. Make no mistake. I’m not Catholic, nor has God whisper in my ear dictating this long and winding road, but I did have an encounter with Father Damien that I have never forgotten. Damien, thanks to the new Pope, Benedict XVI is on the road to Sainthood. At last. The spiritual patron for Hansen's Disease, HIV and AIDS patients and other ‘outcasts’ has finally been embraced by the Vatican, once embarrassed that Father Damien, in caring for what he deemed his Children, fell victim to leprosy (now called Hansen’s Disease) himself and died in agony of it at the age of 49. His story is remarkable. When he arrived on the lonely, isolated Kalaupapa peninsular, he was shocked to find so many sick and dying men, women and children, banished to the island with no food, shelter or any treatment for this hideous, progressive disease. Damien stopped the women from being raped, demanded food and medicine to be shipped to Molokai, built housing and a church for his children. He fed them, bathed them. Respected them. And he loved them. Utterly and unconditionally. He must have been a talented builder because every single structure he erected is still standing and in use, by the remaining two dozen patients who will by Hawaiian state law be allowed to live at Kalaupapa until their last breath.

Visitors are allowed to Molokai, but a permit is required and no more than 100 tourists can be on island at the same time. A few years ago, after the death of my grandmother, who raised me, I fell into a deep depression and during a long stay in Maui, found a compilation of oral histories from former patients at Molokai. Their stories were devastating. So many families were destroyed by the “Separating Sickness.” I felt increasingly compelled to visit Molokai and read everything I could on Father Damien. I became obsessed with the wonderful Australian movie, Molokai in which the extraordinary David Wenham portrayed Damien. Like many islanders, I became enraged when Father Damien’s steps toward Sainthood resulted in the Belgian government digging up his body from his grave in Kalaupapa. Long before he contracted Hansen’s Disease, he considered himself a leper. I felt in death, as in life he would want to sleep with his children and when the Belgian government bent under international pressure and returned his right hand to the people of Hawaii, I felt even more strongly about paying homage to the man I considered a true hero.

Coincidentally, I won a book on ebay called Margaret of Molokai and couldn’t wait to receive it. Then I got an email from a man on Molokai was devastated because I had beaten him out on the book auction. He had tried to win it for his mother, a still-living resident at Kalaupapa. I offered to give him the book as soon I had read it. I promised him I would read it quickly and send it to him immediately. He responded with a kind email saying I was the embodiment of the spirit of Aloha. This man and his wife and soon, his mother, started corresponding with me regularly and I ended up going to visit them. Anyone who has read my Phantom Lover series might be interested to know that Lopaka’s tutu [grandmother] is based on the woman who became my surrogate mother on Molokai. She took me on a tour of the hospital. I was shocked to see all the barriers still in place, as a sort of memorial and living museum where family members were allowed to come and visit their loved ones in the disease’s curable stage, thanks to new drugs.

We went to Damien’s church and we sat in a pew. I will never forget the sun shining on me, the dizzying scent of ginger stems washing over me. I looked at the floor as I thought about my grandmother and all the things I might have said to her given the chance to say goodbye. I saw all the holes in the floor. That, I hadn’t expected. “What are they?” I asked my friend. “Spit holes. In the latter stages of leprosy, the victims during Damien’s time, before there was a cure, could not swallow. Damien still wanted them to come to church and he put spit holes in the floor so they could still come to church and pray.” And then, a wondrous thing happened. I felt him. I really did. His beautiful, Holy ghost was in his House, and I, like all his other outcasts had just become one of Damien’s children. It was an indescribable feeling. It was a high feeling of pure love. “He’s here, you can feel him, can’t you?” my friend whispered and I just sat, stunned. Had I been alone, I know I would have dismissed that moment as a fantasy. That feeling has stayed with me for years now and I reach in for it, whenever I need it.

Recently, Pope Benedict declared the inexplicable healing of 80 year old Audrey Toguchi’s cancer as a Miracle. Her fatal illness miraculously disappeared after a long visit at Father Damien’s grave. He has pushed Damien’s case to the head of the line where he should be. Earlier this year, I went back to Molokai and took Father Damien a lei. I know it’s only his right hand there, but it still belongs to him. The hand that touched, nurtured, fed and held people terrified and feeling abandoned by their God. In Hawaii, Father Damien Day is celebrated on April 15. Beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995, the Catholic Church commemorates Damien on May 10.
Known officially as “Blessed Damien of Molokai,” he will soon be known as Damien, hero, father…SAINT.
Aloha oe,
A.J.

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No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
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Damien Sainthood Poses Dilemma for Leper Colony

In a state known for bustling, exciting tourist destinations such as Waikiki and the Kilauea volcano, Kalaupapa is sacred ground with a history of disease, suffering and isolation. Some 8,000 people have died on this remote peninsula since the Hawaiian Kingdom started exiling leprosy patients here in 1866. Many were torn from their families and left to scrounge for shelter, clothes and food. The vast majority were buried in unmarked graves.

Today, visitor interest in Kalaupapa, on the northern edge of Molokai island, is growing. And it will likely increase when the Vatican proclaims Father Damien — the 19th century priest who cared for the leprosy patients — a saint, most likely late next year. The two dozen patients still living here are eager to celebrate Kalaupapa's most famous resident, a selfless man who cared for leprosy patients when many others shunned them. They would welcome pilgrims at Damien's church and grave. But therein lies a dilemma. The patients and their supporters also don't want throngs of tourists disturbing the community's privacy and desecrating the land. "The priority is the patients. That's why we have to approach this very delicately," said state Sen. J. Kalani English. "Their privacy is paramount, their security is paramount, their dignity is paramount." Kalaupapa's attraction for tourists and pilgrims is heightened by the dramatic story behind the Vatican's recognition of a miracle attributed to Damien, who died in 1889 after contracting leprosy himself. It's this miracle that cleared the way for sainthood. Audrey Toguchi, an 80-year-old Catholic from the Honolulu suburb of Aiea, came to Kalaupapa 10 years ago to pray for help at Damien's grave after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Less than a year later, Toguchi's cancer disappeared. In July, Pope Benedict XVI ruled Damien had intervened because there was no scientific explanation for her recovery.

Kalaupapa is dramatically isolated, a peninsula cut off by 2,000-foot cliffs and surrounded by ocean. It can only be reached by small plane, mule ride or a 1- to 2-hour hike. Only 100 people live here, including the patients and care workers. The state Department of Health limits visitors to Kalaupapa at 100 per day, and each visitor must obtain a permit. On average, only about 25 make the trip. Terryl Vencl, executive director of the Maui Visitors Bureau, which promotes Molokai tourism, expects more people will want to visit but isn't sure how many. The bureau has no plans to market tours after Damien is canonized but will give travel agents information about Kalaupapa. Lawmakers, state officials, and the National Park Service, which operates a historical park at Kalaupapa, all promise they won't allow the visitor cap to be raised without approval by from the remaining patients. Anwei Law, a historian who has been coming to Kalaupapa for almost 40 years, said visitors need to remember that Kalaupapa is not just another tourist attraction. "It's a sacred place because you've had so many people live there and die there," said Law. "It's a place where people had everything taken from them, but their response was not one of hatred."

Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is spread by direct person-to-person contact, although it's not easily transmitted. It can cause skin lesions, mangle fingers and toes, and lead to blindness. But it's been curable since the development of sulfone drugs in the 1940s and people treated with drugs aren't contagious. Hawaii did away with the exile policy in 1969. Patients sent here before 1969 are free to leave, but many have chosen to stay because it's become their home. The state has promised to keep the settlement open and care for patients until the last one dies. The youngest is now 67. After that, the National Park Service will take over management of the peninsula.

The kingdom began strictly enforcing its isolation policy in 1873 — the year Damien arrived — sending hundreds of people to Kalaupapa even though there was no housing for them and no doctor to care for their sores. They were expected to build their own homes, grow their own food, and make their own clothes even though many of them were profoundly sick. When a resident doctor finally arrived in 1879, he wouldn't touch anybody and left medicine on a fence post. Damien, born in Belgium as Joseph de Veuster, stood out because he stayed and put no barriers between himself and the patients. He built homes, constructed a water system, and imported cattle. He had no medical training, but he did have a medical book and a bag, and he made rounds washing and bandaging patient's sores. He shared his pipe with patients and ate from the same bowl. Even before he contracted Hansen's disease, Damien began his sermons saying "We lepers." Damien was diagnosed with leprosy 12 years after he arrived at Kalaupapa and died four years later, at age 49. He's the only health care worker in Hawaii who ever contracted Hansen's.

Henry Nalaielua, 83, a patient who moved to Kalaupapa in 1941, said it would be "a glorious day" when Damien is canonized and would welcome pilgrims. "I know all of us hope that he does become a saint," said Nalaielua, a Catholic. "And that his church here will maybe become a shrine, instead of just Father Damien's church." Even so, patients and their supporters are firm in wanting to retain the 100-person-per-day limit, even if more people want to come seeking another Damien miracle. "You have to realize that the patients are still here," said patient Gloria Marks, 70. Law, the historian, said the limit on visitors should be maintained even after the last patient dies. "You really need to be able to feel the isolation of the place. If you're there with 500 people, you're no way going to feel the isolation that people had to go through," said Law. "You lose a lot of the lessons of history and the meaning."
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The strange case of Father Damien and Robert Louis Stevenson

The life of the famous Belgian missionary Father Damien (1840-1889) - "apostle of the lepers" - has been revisited in the current motion picture, 'Molokai'. Directed by Paul Cox, with David Wenham in the leading role and an all-star cast, the movie is a faithful representation of its subject. Less known, however, is the fact that the famous Scottish author, Robert Louis Stevenson, a Presbyterian, was a strenuous defender of Father Damien in the face of unjustified criticisms. Father F. E. Burns, who provides the following account, is a retired priest of the Melbourne Archdiocese and a former Air Force chaplain.

When the bulky hand-delivered envelope arrived at the office of the Sydney Morning Herald on 25 February 1890 the editor was delighted. Clearly written on the back of the envelope were the sender's details which read "Robert Louis Stevenson, c/- The Union Club, Bligh Street, Sydney". The famous author, who was visiting Sydney, was much in demand in artistic and literary circles - the toast of the city. But when the editor read the article Stevenson had submitted for publication, the blood slowly drained from his face. For it was a most powerful defence of Fr Damien de Veuster, the leper priest who had died the previous April, and who had been the subject of a most bitter sectarian attack.

As a boy I had read the almost unbelievable story of Fr Damien. I had also read Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde, Treasure Island, etc. It was later I came across Father Damien: An Open Letter to the Rev Dr Hyde which Stevenson offered first to the Sydney Morning Herald and which, on legal advice, it refused to publish. But American and British newspapers soon did, and Stevenson's Open Letter thundered across the Pacific, and across the literary world. Stevenson's outrage was sparked by the events following Fr Damien's death. His courageous life had been celebrated, even in the Australian secular press, prompting the Rev H. B. Gage of Sydney to write to Rev Dr Hyde of Honolulu for some details of the suddenly famous priest. Details he got. Hyde replied that Damien was "no saintly philanthropist"; rather he was "a coarse, dirty, headstrong bigot ... not a pure man in his relations with women", whose leprosy was "due to his vices and carelessness."

It is a sad fact that all denominations have their bigots. This was a bigoted age and, here, a case of bigotry at its mischief-making worst. Having obtained his "details" of Fr Damien, Rev Gage proceeded to have them published in the Sydney Presbyterian where, unfortunately for both Gage and Hyde, Stevenson read them. At first he could not believe what he was reading. Stevenson knew Hyde, and had been his guest when he lived in Honolulu. He had also, against his own doctor's advice - Stevenson had TB - visited Molokai shortly after Damien's death. He had been impressed by stories of Molokai and was keen to inquire further, though admitting to being "cynical about popular heroes."

His visit to Molokai lasted eight days, but Stevenson's awakening began even before he landed there. He travelled in a small boat with two religious sisters, "bidding farewell (in humble imitation of Damien) to the lights and joys of life." One of the nuns "wept silently and I could not withhold myself from joining her ... [A]s the boat drew nearer [we] beheld the stairs crowded with abominable deformations of our common manhood ... a population as only now and then surrounds us in the horror of a nightmare ... the butt-ends of human beings lying there almost unrecognisable but still breathing, still thinking, still remembering ... a pitiful place to visit, a hell to dwell in." But dwell in it he did. Stevenson became very friendly with the nuns and - to their despair - mixed freely with the lepers and played with the children. His sorry state of health made him doubly a candidate for infection, and Sr Marianne admonished him.

Robert Louis was a deeply spiritual man, honest to the point of bluntness, and above all a truth- seeker. What he saw at Molokai simply overwhelmed him. As a younger man he had often joked about the clergy of his own denomination in Glasgow saying that if they had appeared more as joyful bearers of the Word, and less like undertakers, he may have taken more notice. But Fr Damien's "hands on" Christianity, together with his robust faith and his acceptance of the news of his own leprosy "with a merry heart" was something different. Even though Stevenson was well aware of Damien's human failings - "he was no plastic saint." Yet the evidence of his goodness was undeniable and Stevenson, famous man of letters, graduate in both Law and Engineering, declared that the eight days on Fr Damien's Molokai changed his life. Before leaving the island, Stevenson presented the children's home with many gifts - a piano among them - and addressed a little poem to the Sisters:

To the Reverend Sister Marianne,

Matron of the Bishop Home, Kalaupapa.
To see the infinite pity of this place,
The mangled limb, the devastated face,
The innocent sufferers smiling at the rod,
A fool were tempted to deny his God.
He sees, and shrinks; but if he look again,
Lo, beauty springing from the breasts of pain!
He marks the sisters on the painful shores,
And even a fool is silent and adores.

The fact that people like listening to and passing on racy details about others (true or false) is indeed a fact of life and, if misrepresentations and lies are published, the truth must be restored. But in the case of Fr Damien, there was another factor. Perhaps Rev H.B. Gage was sincere, even if bigoted. But Dr Hyde's case was different. In 1885, Dr Hyde wrote of Fr Damien in the Hawaiian Gazette describing him as "that noble-hearted Catholic priest who went to Molokai in 1873 to care for the spiritual welfare of those of his faith, and whose work has been so successful." Why he turned from praise to slander in four years is unknown, but Hyde's letter to Gage was certainly not penned in ignorance, and the shuddering hypocrisy of his stance was too much for Stevenson. His wife reported that he locked himself in his room, muttering as he wrote.

Robert Louis Stevenson believed Damien was a saint and predicted that the Church would one day canonise him. He made plain in his letter to Dr Hyde that Hyde's own contribution would be used as "evidence against", and needed to be balanced by the truth - hence his "Open Letter." The reaction was predictable and powerful. Poor Hyde could do no better than to try to dismiss Robert Louis Stevenson as "a bohemian crank, a negligible person whose opinion is of no value to anyone." He had been particularly stung by Stevenson's closing words to him: "The man who did what Damien did is my father ... and the father of all who love goodness: and he was your father too, if God had given you the grace to see it." On his death Damien was laid to rest by and among his leper friends on Molokai. 46 years later his remains were transferred to his native Belgium. President Roosevelt provided a United States Navy ship to transport the casket, which was welcomed at Antwerp by the Cardinal Archbishop, King Leopold III and more than 100,000 people.

As for Stevenson, he died just a few years later in Samoa - but not before making a significant mark there. He bravely and effectively helped unite and represent the Samoans - underdogs as Damien's lepers were - in the struggle against colonial exploitation. And when he died, aged 44, his native friends buried their beloved "Great Story Teller" on the peak of Mt Vaea, "under a wide and starry sky", as he had requested. Fr Damien's life and work have become more well known lately through books and films. And both men have been honoured and commemorated by statues and plaques. But the greatest monument to them both - and the one that tells us much about each - is the beautiful, powerful and somewhat reckless defence of Damien penned in Sydney by Robert Louis Stevenson.
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China allows entry of leprosy patients ahead of Olympics

BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhua) — China lifted its ban on the entry of foreign leprosy sufferers on Wednesday, two weeks ahead of the Beijing Olympics. Leprosy sufferers and their relatives from other countries can enter China starting from July 20, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ). The decision came two months after the organizing committee of the Beijing Olympic Games revealed a guideline on June 2 that blacklisted anyone suffering leprosy, mental illness, a sexually transmitted disease, open pulmonary tuberculosis and those who may commit terrorist acts from coming into China during the Olympic Games from Aug. 8 to 24. “The reason we lifted the ban is that U.N. Human Rights Council passed a resolution on June 18 for the elimination of discrimination against leprosy sufferers,” an official with the Department of Supervision on Health Quaratine of GAQSIQ told Xinhua on Thursday. The official who refused to be named said the new rules would remain in force after the Olympics.

Leprosy is a chronic disease which can cause nerve damage, leading to muscle weakness and atrophy, and permanent disability. According to the World Health Organization, the disease is transmitted via droplets from the nose and mouth of untreated patients, but is not highly infectious. At the beginning of last year, 224,717 cases were recorded globally. China banned the entry of foreign sufferers of leprosy, mental illness, sexually transmitted disease, HIV, and open pulmonary tuberculosis in 1989.
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Kalaupapa celebrates Damien, Parish Anniversary, New Pastor

In St. Francis Church, Kalaupapa, Bishop Larry Silva preaches at the Mass celebrating the feast of Blessed Damien, the 100th anniversary of the Church, and the installation of Father Felix Vandebroek, left, as pastor. (HCH photo by Patrick Downes)
KALAUPAPA July 28th 2008: (Catholic Herald) - With a joyful Mass and luau on May 10, St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Kalaupapa savored a triple crown celebration — the 100th anniversary of the parish church, the feast day of Blessed Damien and the installation of a new pastor. More than 100 people filled the gleaming white church for a music-drenched liturgy presided over by Bishop Larry Silva, and concelebrated by the pastor Sacred Hearts Father Felix Vandebroek, and Sacred Hearts Father Lusius Nimu. The guests, many of whom came to the isolated location on eight- and nine-seat chartered planes, outnumbered the parishioners — the small, aging community of Hansen’s disease patients, their caretakers and the settlement’s government workers. They assembled gradually and noisily, like a big family reunion, with plenty of hugs and kisses and leis, delaying the scheduled 10 a.m. liturgy by almost a half hour. No one minded. “You can feel the joy,” the bishop said, greeting the congregation. In his homily, Bishop Silva expounded on the image of the Good Shepherd presented in the Gospel, urging the congregation to be “shepherds in your families, in your school communities, in heath care.” Speaking of the church’s anniversary, he alluded to the church’s distinctive history. “As we come to celebrate the centennial of this holy place, we remember all those who gathered here in hope, gathered in sorrow, gathered with pain in their hearts, gathered with great joy,” he said. Citing progress being made at the Vatican in Blessed Damien’s canonization cause, the bishop hinted that he will be declared a saint within the year, saying “that this is perhaps the last time we will call him ‘blessed’ on his feast day.” After the homily, the bishop installed the 80-year old Belgian priest as pastor. Before reciting his installation promise, Father Vandebroek said he had a special message to give “to the parishioners of St. Francis.” “We love you,” he simply said. The Mass music was led by a dozen members of the St. John Vianney Choir of Kailua, frequent Kalaupapa visitors, and directed by Molokai-born Robert Mondoy who wrote or arranged most of it. A hula by four Kalaupapa residents — “God is Love” to the tune of “Makalapua” — served as a prelude to the liturgy. After Mass, the people were shuttled over to McVeigh Hall for a luau lunch complete with squid luau, sweet potato, raw crab, varieties of poke and a sheet cake with a picture of the church. Homegrown and visiting singers, dancers and musicians provided some spirited local-style party entertainment. Anyone who could grab an ukulele or knew the hula to “Boy from Laupahoehoe” was welcome to join in. Singer-composer Keith Haugen, with his wife Carmen, debuted the Hawaiian-language song “Kiloi ia” (“Discarded”), a mele about the people of Kalaupapa. “The sick people were thrown away, they were just discarded here at Kalaupapa, they were thrown without care from the big ship into the rough sea at Kalawao,” goes the translation of one of the verses. The lei-laden Father Vandebroek happily mingled rather than eat, chatting with parishioners, friends and guests. The pastor, who came to Hawaii in 1956 and has served in parishes on Oahu, the Maui and, has been at Kalaupapa since September. Resident Winnie Harada, wife of the late Paul Harada, presented Bishop Silva and visiting Lutheran Bishop Murray Finck of California with containers of Hawaiian salt her husband was famous for collecting along the Kalaupapa shoreline. St. Francis is Hawaii’s smallest, most remote, most unique parish. Because of its particular membership, there are no regular baptisms, first communions or weddings — just funerals. The parish continuously welcomes pilgrims from around the world who want to walk the soil that cultivated the sanctity of Father Damien de Veuster and Mother Marianne Cope. St. Francis Church is the successor to the church Father Damien built and used, St. Philomena, which still stands a few miles away, alone among the graves in Kalawao, the original site of the settlement that became the state-mandated destination for those who contracted leprosy in Hawaii between 1866 and 1969." The original St. Francis Church, built of wood in 1899, burned down in 1906. Construction for the present Gothic-style stone church began in 1907. It was completed the following year and blessed on May 28, 1908. St. Francis was renovated in the late 1990s by then pastor Sacred Hearts Father Joseph Hendriks.
By Patrick Downes Hawaii Catholic Herald
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Discriminatory Laws on Leprosy Need Amendment

PUNE, India: 19th August 2009 (Times of India) - Leprosy, which has blighted mankind for thousands of years, is still far from being wiped out from the social psyche even though the disease is completely curable now. Even today, there are several laws that continue to discriminate against the leprosy affected people. The International Leprosy Union Alliance (HA) here has identified 16 such acts and filed a petition to the 'Parliament petition committee' (PPC) recently. "The ILU-HA has formed a committee to discuss the discriminatory laws against leprosy-affected people," said Rashmi Shirhatti, chief executive of ILU-HA . There may be more such acts but the PPC has assured us that they will focus on these 16 acts, where the leprosy-affected persons feel hardship and injustice."

Elaborating on some of these acts, Shirhatti said that the Indian Railways Act of 1869, section 56 gives the railway authorities the power to refuse carriage to patients suffering from contagious diseases. "Leprosy is the least infectious and is not at all contagious. The act is discriminatory," said Shirhatti. Similarly, the Care and Protection Act 2000 says a child found to be affected by leprosy should be dealt with separately. "The committee has proposed an amendment to the effect that such a child should not be segregated, except when undergoing an infectious stage as certified by a medical practitioner," said Shirhatti.

The Life Insurance Corporation Act of 1956, which specifies a higher premium to the leprosy-affected, ought to be amended as "it unnecessarily penalises patients and perpetuates an unscientific fear of leprosy," said Shirhatti. Changes have been sought in the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947; Council of India Act, 1992; Persons with Disabilities Act, 1955; Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, 1888 and The Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959, Shirhatti said. "Be it the Special Marriage Act, Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act 1939, The Hindu Marriage Act, 1956 or the India Divorce Act, 1869, all have provisions for divorce on the grounds of a partner suffering from incurable and virulent leprosy, whereas leprosy is a curable disease now," "The laws were framed when leprosy was considered incurable. Now, it's curable. Hence there is a need to amend these laws," said Ashok Laddha, joint director (leprosy and TB).

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The Fight Against Leprosy in Hawaii

Number of victims increasing but the disease not hereditary
Oakland Enquirer 1895 - (California) – The government has been pursuing for 26 years the policy of segregating the lepers, who are sent to the island of Molokai, where they must live and die. When this policy was adopted it was believed that it would accomplish the extirpation of the disease, and upon that theory it is still pursued: But recent official reports that in the long fight against this disease the faith of those in the contest sometimes wavers. The leper population upon Molokai increases steadily, and, while some authorities hold that there is not much leprosy upon other islands, there are those who assert that there is as much as ever.

From the statistics given in the report to the President of the Board of Health, it appears that in 1866, when the Molokai settlement was established there were 105 lepers in it and by 1870 they had increased to 279. In 1880 the number was 606, and in 1890, 1,213. In 1893 it was 1,155, a less number than in 1890 but an increase over 1892. The report comments: “Considering the natural decrease of the native population and the number of new cases which annually occur, it would seem that in proportion there is as much leprosy as at the commencement if not more”.

The settlement is kept up at an annual cost of $80,000 or over, and, of course, it would not be maintained if it were not generally believed that segregating abates the plague of leprosy, with prospects of its ultimate eradication. And bearing in mind that this policy stamped out leprosy in Europe where it was very prevalent during the Middle Ages, it is reasonable to believe that it will do the same in Hawaii, only it must continue for a century or two and not merely for twenty six years.

This report shows that the theory of hereditary leprosy has been shaken by the experience at Molokai, where most of the children of lepers appear to be healthy, or in the term used by the physicians “clean”. And many of the children taken away young do not in after life develop the disease. This evidence, in the opinion of Dr. Myer, the health officer upon Molokai, justifies the belief that children do not inherit the leprosy, but contract it from their parents in early childhood. This separation of the children from their leper parents involves a good deal of suffering, and has not been universally followed. There is a home provided for little daughters of lepers but none for boys. Dr. Myer asks the question what will become of these children who grow up on the island and answers it by saying: “They will grow up probably a lawless and dangerous element. The settlement is their home; they know no other. …. There is no work for them; they have learned nothing; they have seen little less than idleness, drinking and gambling, and whatever else perfects hoodlums and tramps”.

A human being could hardly come into existence under more depressing conditions than those of the heartfelt child in a colony of lepers.

New York Times
Published September 28th. 1895
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Book Review - Moloka'i by Alan Brennert

Don't assume by the length of time it took me to read this book that I didn't like it. I started it sometime last week and fully expected to finish it by the end of the week. However, life got in the way, and it took me almost a full week longer to finally get it read.

Moloka'i is the story of Rachel, a Hawaiian girl who develops leprosy at the age of seven and is sent to the island of Moloka'i which is the site of a leper colony. I was afraid the book would be depressing and bleak, but it really wasn't. I learned so much from this book. I wasn't aware that the Hawaiian people were (are?) very susceptible to developing leprosy and that there was such an epidemic of the disease. I loved this book - in fact, it makes my list of favorites. Don't be dissuaded by the subject matter - this is a lovely book.
Thanks to SOMER @ http://somereads.blogspot.com/

"Moloka’i is a big, generous, compassionate, beautifully rendered epic novel about a largely forgotten, largely ignored chapter in Hawaiian and American history. Alan Brennert has written an exquisitely textured tale of darkness and light, tragedy and the triumph of the human spirit, filled with original, fully realized characters who walk right off the page and into our hearts."

-Jim Fergus, author of One Thousand White Women: The Journals Of May Dodd


"Love, marriage, divorce, infidelity.life was the same here as anywhere else, wasn't it?....The pali [cliff] wasn't a headstone and Kalaupapa [a leper colony] wasn't a grave. It was a community like any other, bound by ties deeper than most, and people here went to their deaths as people did anywhere: with great reluctance, dragging the messy jumble of their lives behind them."

I confess that I have been haunted by the story of the leper colony on Moloka'i for years and have read other books about Father Damien, who spent sixteen years ministering to patients before he himself died in 1889 of leprosy (as Hansen's disease was then called). Hawaiians were particularly vulnerable to this disease, having lived in isolation on their Pacific islands until the arrival of the white men who brought it.

A couple of years ago, my interest in the human story of the colony was piqued by James Brocker's book, The Lands of Father Damien, in which he memorialized as many of the people from the colony as he could document, including over a hundred photographs of the individuals confined to the colony, the buildings in which they lived, and the activities which made up their day. By far the most moving photographs were those of the small children, all of whom had been wrested from their families, sometimes by bounty-hunters, and sent to live-and meet their deaths-among complete strangers in the Kalaupapa settlement on the island of Moloka'i. One child, Beka, was only four when he arrived alone from Maui to spend the three short years remaining of his life away from his parents, brothers, and sisters.

Alan Brennert's novel Moloka'i is based on serious research into the history of this colony (and includes Brocker's book in the Author's Note). Like Brocker he chooses to focus on the human tragedy, both of individual sufferers and of those families who, while free from the disease themselves, were ostracized by their neighbors and employers because of their association with a patient. But he also emphasizes the personal triumphs of many of these patients, and that is a story which has long needed telling. Instead of elaborating on the horrors of the disease in order to build up drama, as a less skillful writer might have done, Brennert recognizes their dignity and respects them. Though no book about leprosy and the colony at Kalaupapa can ever be free from profound sadness, Brennert avoids turning this novel into a ten-hanky tearjerker, focusing instead on the lives the patients create for themselves and on their attempts at normalcy.

Rachel Kalama, the main character, is a typical 5-year-old growing up in a loving family in Honolulu when her mother first sees a sore on Rachel's leg which will not heal. Fearing what this may mean, not just to Rachel but to the rest of the family, she bandages it and makes Rachel wear long skirts. For over a year she succeeds in keeping Rachel's condition a secret, until one of her siblings lets the secret out during an argument at school. Rachel is taken by the health inspector, who receives a bounty for capturing her, and sent to a Honolulu hospital for sufferers of the disease. The trauma of separation from the only life she has ever known is bad enough, but at least she is in Honolulu, where she can see her family, even at a distance. When Rachel is sent to Kalaupapa a year later, however, her isolation-at the age of seven-is total.

The "family" she develops in Kalaupapa, her friendships with other young children, and her refusal to let the disease (or any of the nuns) control her spirit make her life bearable, and the reader will admire her pluck even while dreading what her future holds. Yet Rachel is one of those in whom the disease develops very slowly, and her story continues through her teen years, her marriage, and well beyond. Through the lively Rachel, Brennert shows the history of the Kalaupapa settlement, the history of treatment for leprosy (Hansen's disease), and the history of Hawaii itself, including the seizure of the Queen and the annexation and colonization of the islands by the American sugar barons (events which clearly parallel Rachel's story). The misconceptions about the spread of the disease and the ostracism of innocent families are brought to life through episodes about Rachel's family and those of her friends at Kalaupapa.

The Christianity of the nuns who work at the settlement sometimes comes into conflict with the centuries-old Hawaiian religious beliefs and mythology of their patients, which the nuns regard as paganism, contributing further to the isolation of the patients and adding to the instability of their lives. Yet Rachel's long, abiding friendship with Sister Catherine, an important part of the book, is built on mutual respect, and Catherine becomes one of the book's most vividly realized characters.

Brennert enriches his novel by incorporating events described in real documents and journals in the Hawaii archives into his story of the settlement, from its lawless, "wild West" atmosphere at the outset, to its final development as a "home" for the people who live there. (Thirty-one people, now completely cured of the disease through sulfa drugs, still reside, voluntarily, in Kalaupapa.) He includes many real people among the fictional characters, thereby informing a new audience of the unselfish service of doctors, administrators, nuns like Sister Catherine, and enlightened patients themselves toward bettering the lives of the people of Kalaupapa. Even Robert Louis Stevenson, who visited the settlement, plays a cameo role. The reader observes the community as it becomes more "normal," with marching bands, sports teams, celebrations, and even horse races (with the patients as riders), along with facilities such as bakeries, general stores, and laundries.

While we have no way of knowing if Brennert's depiction of the life Rachel and others lived in the settlement may be a bit rosy-colored, it is the kind of life we would hope these patients could enjoy. Though there is melodrama and sentimentality here, it flows naturally from the subject and the author's desire to present the full historical record. Few readers will remain unchanged by Rachel's story. As one character says, "How we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death.is the true measure of the Divine within us."
(reviewed by Mary Whipple JAN 11, 2004)

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Former Leprosy Patients Hear Long-awaited Apology

Father Damien's church in Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii on August 12, 2008. The state of Hawaii passed a resolution apologizing to the residents of Kalaupapa, who are victims of Hansens Disease, on how unfairly they have been treated. (AP PHOTO)
Aug. 13th. 2008 (Associated Press) - The Hawaiian state delivered a long-awaited apology to former leprosy patients forcibly confined to a remote peninsula on the island of Molokai. "We're sorry. We're sorry for the treatment. We're sorry for the suffering that you've been through," state Sen. J. Kalani English told about a dozen former patients gathered Tuesday at a meeting hall. "The entire state is with me today as I say this." English then read aloud a resolution the Senate and House passed in April apologizing to the former patients.

It said many patients were torn apart from their families when they were sent to Kalaupapa Peninsula. It acknowledged the sacrifices the patients made, noting they thought of the public more than themselves, and gave up freedoms and opportunities the rest of society takes for granted. The Hawaiian Kingdom, and then later the republic, territory and state of Hawaii, together banished 8,000 people with leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, to Kalaupapa for over a century after 1866 in an attempt to control the illness. Drugs to cure the disease were first administered in the 1940s. Patients were no longer required to remain at Kalaupapa after 1969 but many have chosen to live out the rest of their lives there because it had become their home.

Former patient Gloria Marks told English the apology was way overdue but she appreciated it. "We're very grateful for you to come here and give us this message," Marks told English. But she was sad that Paul Harada, her brother-in-law and former patient who pushed hard for an apology resolution, was not alive to witness the event. Harada died Jan. 4. After English spoke, Makia Malo visited the grave of his younger brother, Earl D.K. Malo, who died at Kalaupapa in 1968 when he was 35 years old. Malo, who is blind, held his cane on top of his brother's gravestone while a health aide read the resolution. Malo, 73, said he thought everyone buried at Kalaupapa heard the statement. "I know they're watching and nodding. All of these people. They're all agreeing. They're just saying 'at last,'" Malo said.

Edwin "Pancake" Lelepali, 80, said he believed the apology should be made to the earliest residents of Kalaupapa more than anyone because they had to scrounge for shelter and food and were given little medical care. But by the time Lelepali arrived in 1941 at the age of 14, he said patients received food rations, allowances and health care. Then in 1969, patients were given the opportunity to leave if they wanted. "Those people up there, they had nothing," Lelepali said. "They really suffered."
By AUDREY McAVOY
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Doctor Shares Story of Cancer Patient's Miracle Cure

Dr. Chang

KALIHI, Hawaii: Aug. 11th. (KHNL) -- It's the miracle cure that is leading to the sainthood of one of Hawaii's best known religious figures. On Sunday night, a cancer survivor's doctor shares his story. Dr. Walter Chang and others in the medical field couldn't help but marvel about the surprising results, after cancer patient Audrey Toguchi, refused treatment. A Kalihi church priest asked doctor chang to speak about Mrs. Toguchi's so called "miracle cure." Even though it's not a catholic church, a recent discussion about miracles in life, sparked episcopalian interest. "Right down the street I grew up and my brother was telling you, very interesting times," Dr. Chang said.

But not nearly as interesting as his experiences with his former patient, Audrey Toguchi. "We were really, truly, I mean, we marvelled at this particular phenomenon and of course it's called complete spontaneous regression of cancer, the true believable call it a miracle, a true skeptic will say this is a random coincidence," Chang said. At Kalaupapa on Molokai, Father Damien treated Hansen's Disease patients for more than 15 years and was said to give them hope instead of dispair. After refusing treatment, Toguchi prayed to Father Damien often. Eventually doctors confirmed Toguchi's tumors had disappeared without treatment. "So I was so thrilled when I learned that it was she who had her cancer disappear in five months and I think all of us at Aiea High School, there's an alumni association, are just ecstatic about what has happened to her," Toguchi's co-worker Nancy Au said. "No one could've deserved it more than her." Dr. Chang feels this so-called miracle might not work for everyone. "Well, hopefully that they'll believe there's something to prayers, but they should actually see their physician actually for tried and true therapy first," he said.

One thing most agree on is that no one truly knows why some cancers disappear. Dr. Chang says an additional three patients he's treated have experienced complete spontaneous regression of cancer. He says only around 800 people throughout the world have experienced this.

By Duane Shimogawa
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In Their Own Words

In the past, both patients and visitors to Kalawao and Kalaupapa wrote about their impressions and experiences. First-hand accounts reveal how people felt about being sent to this remote place, and of the conditions they faced. The following quotes offer some insight into patient life as seen from the standpoint of the patients themselves.

Ambrose T. Hutchison, resident in the settlement from 1879-1932
“On the night of the 4th day of January 1879 about seven p.m. I with 11 other fellow sufferers were lined up in two by two file by our jailer (each of us carrying our own baggage) guarded on each side by a squad of policemen were taken from the leper detention station...and put aboard the SS Mokolii lying along side the pier at the foot of Fort Street. After a half-hour wait for two Government Officials, Sam G. Wilder President of the Board of Health and Dr. N.B. Emerson newly appointed first resident physician of the Leper Settlement of Kalawao. When they arrived and came aboard the steamer the line was cast off, the steamer moved out into the habor and steamed out to sea bound for Molokai and arrived off Kalaupapa the next morning 7 a.m. when the steamer anchored we entered a row boat with the two officials and rowed to the Kalaupapa landing and put ashore and [were] received by the local officials of the Leper Settlement. After our names, ages and places we hailed from were taken down, left on the rocky shore without food and shelter. No houses provided by the then Government for the like of us outcasts.”
- Ambrose T. Hutchison, resident in the settlement from 1879-1932

Peter Kaeo, cousin of Queen Emma, in a letter to Queen Emma, August 11, 1873

Peter Young Kaeo Kekuaokalani March 4, 1836 - November 26, 1880 was a Hawaiian prince and cousin of Queen Emma of Hawaii also the grandson oJohn Young Olohana advisor to Kamehameha the Great. Peter was born March 4, 1836 at Pa'loha, Honolulu on the island of O'ahu. He was born into a noble Hawaiian family. His mother was Jane Lahilahi, the youngest daughter of John Young and Ka'o'ana'eha. His father was The Hon. Joshua Kaeo, sometime Judge of the Supreme Court of Hawaii, and great grandson of King Kalaniopuu. He was, according to Hawaiian tradition, hanaied (adopted) by his maternal uncle John Kaleipaihala Young at birth. His uncle was the fourth Kuhina Nui and the Minister of the Interior. He was chosen by Kamehameha III to attended Chiefs'Children's School along with his cousin Emma because of their descent from Kealiimaikai, Kamehameha III's uncle. The school was ran by Amos Starr Cooke and Julliette Montague Cooke an American missionary couple. He was declared eligible to succeed the Hawaiian throne by the Royal Order of Kamehameha III. He serve as a member of the House of Nobles and assisted in formulating laws of kingdom. He also served as Aide-de-camp to Kamehameha IV.

He contracted leprosy, known as Hansen's disease, which was uncurable at the time. He was exiled and isolated to the leper colony at Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai. He arrived on the settlement on the same boat as William P. Ragsdale, landing June 29 1873. He had the means to maintain a comfortable existence for himself, including two servants, but was not unaware of the poverty and desperation around him. During his exile at Kalaupapa, he and his cousin Emma Kaleleonalani, at the time Queen Dowager of Hawaii, exchange letters revealing record of their personal lives during this three-year period.

From Peter Kaeo to Queen Emma, August 11, 1873:

"Deaths occur quite frequently here, almost dayly. Napela (the Mormon elder and assistant supervisor of the Kalaupapa Settlement) last week rode around the Beach to inspeck the Lepers and came on to one that had no Pai [taro] for a Week but manage to live on what he could find in his Hut, anything Chewable. His legs were so bad that he cannot walk, and few traverse the spot where His Hut stands, but fortunate enough for him that he had sufficient enough water to last him till aid came and that not too late, or else probably he must have died."

In November 26, 1880 at the age 44, he died at Kalawao, after 7 years of suffering on the leper colony. Yet the Hawaiian Gazette, Dec. 1, 1880 has to say: The Hon. P. Y. Kaeo died at his residence on Emma Street on Friday night [November 26, 1880]. The funeral took place on Sunday and was largely attended by the retainers and friends of the family. The hearse was surrounded by Kahili-bearers as becomes the dignity of a chief.

- Peter Kaeo, cousin of Queen Emma, in a letter to Queen Emma, August 11, 1873

Male, Part-Hawaiian, c. 1977-78
“Like the other patients, they caught me at school. It was on the Big Island. I was twelve then. I cried like the dickens for my mother and for my family. But the Board of Health didn’t waste no time in those days. They sent me to Honolulu, to Kalihi Receiving Station, real fast. Then they sent me to Kalaupapa. That’s where they sent most of us. Most came to die.”
- Male, Part-Hawaiian, c. 1977-78

Female, Hawaiian, c. 1977-78
“I remained in Kalaupapa for thirty years. I was finally paroled in 1966. My mother was still alive, so I wrote to her and told her I was finally cured. I could come home. After a long while, her letter came. She said, ‘Don’t come home. You stay at Kalaupapa.’ I wrote her back and said I wanted to just visit, to see the place where I was born. Again, she wrote back. This time she said, ‘No, you stay there.’ You see, my mother had many friends and I think she felt shame before them. I was disfigured, even though I was cured. So, she told me, her daughter, ‘Don’t come home.’ She said, ‘You stay right where you are. Stay there, and leave your bones at Kalaupapa. This place is finally my real home. They take good care of me here.”
- Female, Hawaiian, c. 1977-78

Male, Hawaiian, c. 1977-78
“You know, the babies that were born inside here were not allowed to stay with their parents. After the babies were born, the law said they had to be taken away to the baby nursery in Kalaupapa. They were afraid of the contact—afraid the babies would catch the disease from their parents…. But some of my children, I will tell you this, some of them I kept longer. Most times, the babies were born in the night. We kept everyone quiet so the administrators and nurses would not hear the baby being born. All my babies were born in my own home, right here."
- Male, Hawaiian, c. 1977-78

Male, part-Hawaiian, c. 1977-78
“One of the worst things about this illness is what was done to me as a young boy. First, I was sent away from my family. That was hard. I was so sad to go to Kalaupapa. They told me right out that I would die here; that I would never see my family again. I heard them say this phrase, something I will never forget. They said, ‘This is your last place. This is where you are going to stay, and die.’ That’s what they told me. I was a thirteen-year-old kid.”
- Male, part-Hawaiian, c. 1977-78

Male, part-Hawaiian, c. 1977-78
“When I arrived at Kalaupapa, I was the youngest child inside the place. My father was waiting for me when I arrived, along with many of his friends. All the people took me in, and I became like everyone’s child. It was really one big family in here, an ohana. I had everything…so much love! I was spoiled rotten. I even had the nuns taking care of me.”
- Male, part-Hawaiian, c. 1977-78

Official photo left, taken in Oct 1934, providing her with her patient identification number.
Olivia Robello Breitha (1916-2006)
Olivia Robello Breitha's life was "ordinary and uneventful" until 1934. That year when she was 18 yrs. of age, about to be married and happily living with ther family, she was told she had leprosy. In those days, all those diagnosed with this disease in Hawaii were forcibly taken from family, friends and community and isolated on the remote peninsula known as Kalaupapa. Olivia lived at Kalaupapa for 73 yrs. during which time a cure for leprosy had been discovered, the isolation laws have been abondoned and Kalaupapa designated as a National Historical Park for the education and inspiration of present and future generations. Olivia traveled to different states and other countries but chose to live out her life at Kalaupapa - her home. This is where she fell in love, married Johnny Breitha and chose not tohave children because she knew they would be taken away from her at birth. This is where she wrote her autobiograpby and made a documentary with Tim Baker a 32 yr. old man who has since died from Aids, continuing to fight for her own rights and those of others.
Documentary Review Olivia & Tim Click Here >>>>>>

“The administration office…had a railing around the ‘boss’ (administrator) and there was a bench set against the wall where the patient sat. When Mr. Judd [Lawrence Judd, former Governor of Hawai`i who later became a Kalaupapa superintendent] came, the first thing that came down was the railing in his office. Then came the chain link fence in the caller house at the visitors’ quarters. That gave us a feeling that we, the patients, almost belonged to the human race again. You cannot imagine how much a simple thing like a fence and a railing coming down meant to me. I’m sure it had the same effect on all the patients.”
- Olivia Robello Breitha,
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No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
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An Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy, Honolulu 1865

(Statue of King KAMEHAMEHA)
WHEREAS, the disease of Leprosy has spread to considerable extent among the people, and the spread thereof has excited well grounded alarms; and Whereas, further, some doubts have been expressed regarding the powers of the Board of Health in the premises, notwithstanding the 302nd Section of the Civil Code; and Whereas, in the opinion of the Assembly, the 302nd Section is properly applicable to the treatment of persons afflicted with leprosy. Yet for greater certainty, and for the sure protection of the people,

BE IT ENACTED, by the King and the Legislative Assembly of the Hawaiian Islands, in the Legislature of the Kingdom assembled:

SECTION 1. The Minister of the Interior, as President of the Board of Health, is hereby expressly authorized, with the approval of the said Board, to reserve and set apart any land or portion of land now owned by the Government, for a site or sites of an establishment or establishments to secure the isolation and seclusion of such leprous persons as in the opinion of the Board of Health or its agents, may, by being at large, cause the spread of leprosy.

SEC. 2. The Minister of the Interior, as President of the Board of Health, and acting with the approval of the said Board, may acquire for the purpose stated in the preceding section, by purchase or exchange, any piece or pieces, parcel or parcels of land, which may seem better adapted to the use of lepers, than any land owned by the Government.

SEC. 3. The Board of Health or its agents are authorized and empowered to cause to be confined, in some place or places for that purpose provided, all leprous patients who shall be deemed capable of spreading the disease of leprosy, and it shall be the duty of every police or District Justice, when properly applied to for that purpose by the Board of Health, or its authorized agents, to cause to be arrested and delivered to the Board of Health or its agents, any person alleged to be a leper, within the jurisdiction of such police or District Justice, and it shall be the duty of the Marshal of the Hawaiian Islands and his deputies, and of the police offers, to assist in securing the conveyance of any person so arrested to such place, as the Board of Health, or its agents may direct, in order that such person may be subjected to medical inspection, and thereafter to assist in removing such person to place of treatment or isolation, if so required, by the agents of the Board of Health.

SEC. 4. The Board of Health is authorized to make such arrangements for the establishment of a Hospital, where leprous patients in the incipient stages may be treated in order to attempt a cure, and the said Board and its agents shall have full power to discharge all such patients as it shall deem cured, and to send to a place of isolation contemplated in Sections one and two of this Act, all such patients as shall be considered incurable or capable of spreading the disease of leprosy.

SEC. 5. The Board of Health or its agents may required from patients, such reasonable amount of labor as may be approved of by the attending physicians, and may further make and publish such rules and regulations as by the said Board may be considered adapted to ameliorate the condition of lepers, which said rules and regulations shall be published and enforced as in the 284th and 285th Sections of the Civil Code provided.

SEC. 6. The property of all persons committed to the care of the Board of Health for the reasons above stated shall be liable for the expenses attending their confinement, and the Attorney-General shall institute suits for the recovery of the same when requested to do so by the President of the Board of Health.

SEC. 7. The Board of Health, while keeping an accurate and detailed account of all sums of money expended by them out of any appropriations which may be made by the Legislature, shall keep the amounts of sums expended for the leprosy, distinct from the general account. And the said Board shall report to the Legislature at each of its regular sessions, the said expenditures in detail, together with such information regarding the disease of leprosy, as well as the public health generally, as it may deep to be of interest to the public.

Approved this 3rd day of January, 1865.
KAMEHAMEHA, R.

The section referred to is as follows:
§ 302. When any person shall be infected with the small-pox, or other sickness dangerous to the public health, the Board of Health, or its Agent, may, for the safety of the inhabitants, remove such sick or infected person to a separate house, and provide him with nurses and other necessaries which shall be at the charge of the person himself, his parents or master, if able; otherwise at the charge of the Government.

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No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
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Ten interesting facts about Bl. Damien of Molokai

1. The lepers were confined to the northern shore of Molokai, separated from the rest of the island and its inhabitants by a sheer cliff.

2. It was not unusual for Bl. Damien to celebrate more than one funeral a day.

3. Bl. Damien was quite handy: he built a church, clinics, an orphanage and huts and he even built the coffins for the deceased lepers himself.

4. April 15, 2009 will be the 120th anniversary of his death.

5. There's a Catholic high school in Hawaii named after Bl. Damien.

6. Bl. Damien served the lepers for over 12 years.

7. He is buried in Belgium, but his right hand has been kept in his grave at Molokai.

8. Bl. Damien was born and raised in Belgium.

9. Bl. Damien wasn't originally chosen to minister to the lepers, but was sent when his older brother, Pamphile, was too sick to go.

10. Bl. Damien was a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
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Mother Marianne Cope (1838-1916)

For centuries Hansen’s disease, or leprosy, was a frightening illness, both for its victims and those who treated them. Although it was known to be contagious, no one knew exactly how it was contracted. For that reason, many physicians and other health care providers refused to treat or even touch those patients diagnosed with the disease. In the late 1800’s Mother Marianne Cope and other Sisters of St. Francis journeyed from the United States to the far-away Kingdom of Hawai`i to care for these outcasts of society when others would or could not. Their story is not as well known as Father Damien’s, but it is just as full of love and sacrifice. It was in June 1883, in Syracuse, New York, that Mother Marianne Cope received an intriguing letter from a Catholic priest asking for help in managing hospitals and schools in the Hawaiian Islands. At that time, she was 45 years old and had been a Sister in the Order of St. Francis for 21 years. There were reasons Mother Marianne might have ignored the letter. Growing up in Utica, New York, Mother Marianne had not had an easy life. She was born Barbara Koob to a family of modest means in the village of Heppenheim in the German grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt. The family immigrated to Utica, New York, in 1840 when Barbara was a child of two. As a young adult she was a factory worker in Utica. At her acceptance into the community of Franciscan Sisters she took the name of Marianne. By 1883 she had reason be proud as she had achieved the position as supervisor of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse. The letter that arrived from Hawai`i offered her a different path. Mother Marianne decided to accept the less prestigious position with the Hawaiian mission. She responded to the letter enthusiastically: “I am hungry for the work and I wish with all my heart to be one of the chosen Ones, whose privilege it will be, to sacrifice themselves for the salvation of the souls of the poor Islanders…. I am not afraid of any disease, hence it would be my greatest delight even to minister to the abandoned ‘lepers.’”

She and six other Sisters of St. Francis arrived in Honolulu in November 1883. With Mother Marianne as supervisor, their task was to manage Kaka`ako Branch Hospital on Oahu, which served as a receiving station for Hansen’s disease patients gathered from all over the islands. Here the more severe cases were processed and shipped to the island of Molokai for confinement at the settlement at Kalawao, and then later at Kalaupapa.The sisters set quickly to work. They began the process of cleaning the hospital and tending to the 200 patients. By 1885, the sisters had made major improvements to the living conditions and treatment of patients at Kaka`ako. In November of that year, they also initiated the founding of Kapiolani Home inside the hospital compound. The home was established to care for the non-patient daughters of Hansen’s disease patients at Kaka`ako and Kalawao.

The Call to Kalaupapa
Mother Marianne expanded the efforts of the Sisters of St. Francis to include managing a hospital and school at Wailuku on Maui. She also responded to a call for assistance on Moloka`i. In April 1888, wealthy Honolulu banker Charles Bishop had presented the Hawaiian government with a donation of $5,000 to establish a home for girls in Kalaupapa. The government approached Mother Marianne with supervising the new home. The resident priest, Fr. Damien, who by 1888 had already been diagnosed with Hansen’s disease and knew his death was imminent, was eager for the sisters to come. Mother Marianne consulted with all the sisters and, to her credit, they felt free to voice their concerns. Responded one: “I am very honest with you. I am afraid. I have heard too much about these poor people. I heard also that there are no rules and regulations. That everyone does as he pleases.” Another stated: “If it is not a suitable place for any woman how can it be for the Sisters.” But Mother Marianne, along with Sister Leopoldina Burns and Sister Vincentia McCormick, accepted the challenge and in November 1888 they arrived at Kalaupapa. They ran the Bishop Home, and until 1895 they managed the Home for Boys at Kalawao, founded by Father Damien for boys and young men.

The workload was extremely heavy in that Bishop Home alone provided shelter for 103 girls in 1893. There were times when the burden seemed overwhelming. In a moment of despair, Sister Leopoldina reflected, “How long Oh Lord must I see only those that are sick and covered with leprosy?” Mother Marianne’s example—her never-failing optimism, her serenity, her caring nature, and her considerable abilities—gave strength to the other sisters. Together, through devotion and self-sacrifice, the Sisters of St. Francis rendered a remarkable service to humanity in the islands of Hawaii. Mother Marianne never returned to Syracuse. She spent the remainder of her life at Kalaupapa. She died in 1918 at the age of 80 and is buried on the grounds of Bishop Home.
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Another Molokai Collaborator of Damien

Brother Joseph Dutton
Zenit: July 26th. 2008: - Catholicism on the Hawaiian island of Molokai owes much to the pioneering efforts of Blessed Damien de Veuster and Mother Marianne Cope. Soon their names will be listed among the saints.

But there is another collaborator of theirs who also deserves mention for the increase of the faith. His name is Joseph Dutton (1843-1931), a Vermont-born convert who labored first with Father Damien and then with Mother Marianne and her successors for 44 years.

His own dedication to God was marked by the fact that he gave himself completely in service of those with Hansen's Disease, only leaving their side to enter St. Francis Hospital, Honolulu, where he died while recovering from surgery at age 87.

Perhaps one day this great layman will join his colleagues on the rolls of the saints.

Patrick Hayes, Ph.D.

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The Facts behind the 2nd Miracle attributed to Damien

NEWS KHON2 TV Hawaii - Audrey Toguchi talks of her miracle. Click Here >>>>>>
It is a first for Hawaii -- an elevation to sainthood. Father Damien received the pope's approval today. The final hurdle was cleared today when Pope Benedict the 16th approved a second miracle attributed to the Molokai missionary -- the 1998 cure of an Aiea woman's cancer. Science says Audrey Toguchi wouldn't be here today. Cancer gave her a death sentence in 1997. "He told me straight out, he said this cancer is going to take your life," said the retired school teacher who just made 80 last month. Her husband of more than 50 years remembers the feeling as if it were yesterday. "Five to 6 months only the doctor gave,” said Yukio Toguchi. “Five to 6 months, can you imagine that?"

Audrey's doctor wanted to try chemotherapy to battle back the tumors taking over her lungs. Retired surgeon Dr. Walter Chang recalls: "She said to me very quietly and very calmly, ‘No, I'm going to pray to Father Damien.’ I said, well that's very nice and good. Prayers are important but you still need chemotherapy, she said no." Instead, she went to Molokai, to the grave of Father Damien, the missionary she had studied since her youngest days in Catholic school. "And right there I said, dear lord, please, you created my body please take care to make it well, and Father Damien can you please pray for me because I need you, your intercession to help me to get well," Audrey said. The tumors began to shrink and were gone altogether within 5 months. "I put everything in his hands, I trusted him and I figured from here on I am not going to worry about it," Audrey said. "There has never been another one described, so we call it in medicine a complete spontaneous regression of her liposarcoma,” Chang said. “It's very remarkable, very unusual, never previously described."

The Vatican carefully vetted the case, a process that took years. "They want to make sure that this is not a hoax, that this is not some kind of a scam," Chang said. It was almost in jeopardy when the hospital lost track of some original evidence -- in somewhat of a clerical miracle, the doctor had set more biopsy slides aside, key proof to the pope for approving the case as miracle. "That's how I look at a miracle, you can't explain it," Audrey said. She says Damien has always been a saint to her, but she's thrilled the world will know, too. "I think the greatest thing that's happening is to the villagers in Kalaupapa," she said. “He offers hope to everybody and he's kind of like a hero to all of us."

Still to come from Rome -- a date for canonization, the formal ceremony to grant sainthood. When cardinals hold their consistory in February, they could set the date for sometime later in 2009. Some Kalaupapa residents, like uncle Boogie Kahilihiwa, were overcome with emotion upon hearing the news. "Some guys broke down in tears and said its about time, he should have been a saint a long time ago. You gotta be here to really feel it. All our prayers been answered already...Father Damien is going to be a saint officially. As far as I am concerned he is here with us." The story of father Damien's life begins on January third, 1840.

He was born Joseph de Veuster in Belgium. He chose the name Damien upon entering the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts in 1859 and was ordained to priesthood 5 years later. In 1873, Father Damien arrived on Molokai and devoted the remaining 16 years of his life to Hansen's disease patients at Kalaupapa. After learning that he had contracted leprosy in 1884, Father Damien wrote "My eyebrows are beginning to fall out. Soon i will be disfigured entirely. Having no doubts about the true nature of my disease, I am calm, resigned, and very happy in the midst of my people." Father Damien died on April 15, 1889. In 1955, 106 years after his death, the cause of Father Damien was formally introduced for the purpose of Sainthood. In 1977, Pope Paul the sixth declared Father Damien, venerable Damien. And in 1995, he was declared Blessed Damien by Pope John Paul II.

Plans are moving forward to honor Father Damien with a church bearing his name on Molokai. A model was approved by parishioners in the spring. The project is estimated to cost $3,000,000. A gala dinner event is scheduled to take place August 16th on Oahu at the Koolau Golf Club. Tickets are $125. All proceeds benefit the Blessed Damien Church Building Fund.
By Gina Mangieri
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KGMB TV Hawaii - Father Damien to Become Catholic Saint

NEWS KGMB TV Hawaii - Announcement of Damien's canonisation click here >>>>>>

July 3rd. Hawaii: - Rev. Damien de Veuster, better known at Father Damien, will be recognized by the Catholic Church as a saint. Thursday Pope Benedict XVI declared Father Damien has performed a second miracle, a prerequisite for sainthood. Father Damien came to the then Sandwich Islands in 1864. He dedicated his life to serving people who had been banished to Kalaupapa on Molokai with leprosy. He eventually contracted the disease and died in 1889 at the age of 49.

Catholics in Hawaii are celebrating the honor being bestowed upon Father Damien. "It is with a great sigh of relief that finally our prayers are being answered and that recognition will be given to this holy man ... this wonderful priest who worked so hard for the cause of those that were the least of our brothers. The outcasts of society," said Rev. Christopher Keahi, the Provincial Superior of the Sacred Hearts Fathers in Hawaii, the same order Father Damien belonged to.

According to the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu Father Damien's second miracle happened in 1999. An Oahu woman named Audrey Toguchi was dying of lung cancer when she went to Father Damien's grave on Molokai and prayed to him. Although her condition was terminal, the cancer vanished and she is still alive today.

The first miracle was recognized by the Vatican in 1992. It involved a French woman who, in 1895, was dying of intestinal disease. She too prayed to Father Damien, recovered and lived for another 32 years. Catholics all over Hawaii are celebrating, including people at Honolulu's Damien Memorial School. If you look at a young man who is from Belgium coming to Hawaii and giving up his life knowing the consequences of his work but doing it for religious purposes, it is very inspiring," said Bernard Ho, President and C.E.O. of Damien School. "The Catholic community and the Damien community have been waiting for this for a while. We've been praying for it for a while and it's finally answered our prayers."

There is no official word on when Father Damien will be canonized to sainthood, but sources within the church said it probably will not happen before February of 2009 at the very earliest. The ceremony will happen at the Vatican in Rome with people from Hawaii and Belgium in attendance.
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Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
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