WAILUKU -- Just after midnight in Rome on Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI made the final announcement many Hawaii residents have wanted to hear for more than a century.
The pope will canonize Blessed Damien of Molokai as a saint Oct. 11 at the Vatican, according to an e-mail from the Very Rev. Marc R. Alexander of the Honolulu Roman Catholic Church Diocese.
Damien ministered to leprosy patients on Kalaupapa in the 19th century, ultimately contracting the then-fatal disease. The pope had previously declared in July that Damien would become a saint, after the church officially attributed to Damien the two miracles required for sainthood.
"Hawaii is truly blessed to have received his faithful service," said Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona in a statement issued Saturday. "His lessons of faith, sacrifice and community will continue to resonate for generations and reflect the love and aloha with which the people of Hawaii strive to share with all our residents and visitors."
Honolulu Bishop Larry Silva was in Rome for the official announcement. The Vatican announced the dates for Damien's canonization and that of nine others.
Five will be declared saints during a ceremony April 26, with the rest, including Damien, on Oct. 11.
"That will be the day in which the world will recognize him and call him Saint Damien," said the Very Rev. Christopher Keohi, Order of the Sacred Hearts Hawaii Province, which was Damien's order. "Of course, he would probably turn over in his grave, because he was never one for accolades. Damien never felt deserving of being called holy or saintly, but his fame stretched so much from that little peninsula that he felt compelled to use it to help his people."
Hawaii church leaders will travel to Vatican City for the ceremony as well as organize simultaneous celebrations in Honolulu and Kalaupapa. They are putting together a group of 300 for a tour that includes a visit to Belgium. Anyone can join the tour by contacting Seawind Tours, Keohi said. For information visit www.seawindtours.com.
On Saturday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu, the church celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving. A similar Mass is scheduled for 9 a.m. today at St. Francis Church in Kalaupapa.
Father Damien was elevated to the title of Blessed Damien when Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1995. He was born Joseph De Veuster in Belgium. He took the name Father Damien upon his ordination to the priesthood.
In 1873, the 33-year-old priest arrived on the remote north coast peninsula of Molokai to serve victims of leprosy, now called Hansen's disease, who were forced to live in the colony. The living conditions and treatment of the people were harsh at the time, and Kalaupapa's more-than 800 residents lived in near chaos.
"He went to a place with no law and he created one law: the law of love," Keohi said. "And he lived it to the end."
Damien and his order are credited with significantly improving the patients' lives, by bringing order as well as food, fresh water, health care, education and compassion. The former carpenter improved living quarters and built his own church, St. Philomena.
"He went there (to Hawaii) knowing that he could never return," Father Alfred Bell, who spearheaded Damien's canonization cause, told Vatican Radio. "He suffered a lot, but he stayed."
Twelve years after his arrival at Kalaupapa, Damien contracted leprosy himself. People actually need a rare genetic disposition to contract the illness. The disfiguring disease has been curable since the 1960s.
Damien's order and admirers have pushed for his sainthood since he died in 1889 at the age of 49.
Thousands of leprosy patients, mostly Native Hawaiians, were banished to Kalaupapa after an outbreak in the 1850s. The penninsula today is home to 14 Hansen's disease patients and is a national historic park.
Federal law limits the number of visitors to the park to 100 per day, a limit based on the patients' desire to maintain quiet, private lives. The settlement remains accessible only by a mule trail down a 1,600-foot cliff, by barge or by small plane.
Damien's lei-draped grave rests next to his church. His remains were exhumed for reburial in Belgium, but a relic, his right hand, was returned to the remote site to be buried next to the church in 1995.
Kalaupapa and Molokai residents expect pilgrims to visit the island and park en masse once Damien is canonized. They said they've already seen an uptick in visitors since the decision to grant Damien sainthood was announced.
Interest in Damien has risen steadily since his beatification, which required proof of the first miracle. That case occurred in 1895 when a French nun dying of a gastrointestinal illness reportedly experienced a spontaneous recovery after beginning a novena to Damien before slipping into unconsciousness.
Then, this summer, the pope and Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which is composed of bishops and cardinals, approved a second miracle that had been previously supported by a panel of theologians and a five-doctor Vatican commission. The church determined that a Honolulu woman's healing of terminal lung cancer defied medical explanation.
Audrey Toguchi was cured in 1999 after she made a pilgrimage to Kalaupapa and prayed to the priest. She attributed the healing to the intercession of Damien.
The case was written up by her doctor, Walter Chang, in the Hawaii Medical Journal in 2000 in an article about complete spontaneous regression of cancer. Chang also encouraged her to report her recovery to the church.
Bell said Damien's concern for others was a model for all the faithful today, particularly the young.
"Father Damien's example helps us to not forget those who are forgettable in the world," Bell said.
Blessed Mother Marianne Cope, a Franciscan nun who also served patients at Kalaupapa and was Damien's colleague, awaits canonization as well.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Chris Hamilton can be reached at chamilton@mauinews.com.
