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KALAUPAPA Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, gave a big mahalo to the residents of Molokai on Saturday while conducting a thanksgiving Mass in honor of recently canonized St. Damien.

"We gave him to you as a human being, and you gave him back as a saint," Danneels said during his homily at St. Philomena Church on the windswept coast of Kalawao. "For that, we thank you."

"It was here (Hawaii) that Damien was ordained a priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Here he began his heroic journey as Father Damien. Hawaii can be proud, and the whole world along with it. Yes, here it is appropriate to be proud of this heroic man."

Danneels was the highest-ranking official in one of the largest gatherings of Catholic bishops ever on the Neighbor Islands. Joining Daneels and Honolulu Bishop Larry Silva were 11 bishops and one archbishop, all from California.

Shuttled to the remote peninsula from Honolulu and topside Molokai by a handful of chartered aircraft, the clergy joined residents of Kalaupapa and Molokai in celebrating Damien's canonization

"I thought it was beautiful," Bishop Silva said. "I thought the cardinal's words were very touching."

Kalaupapa resident Norbert Palea was on hand to share his aloha, baked goods and even a few choruses of "Chattanooga Choo Choo." He said the people of Kalaupapa have been on a high since Damien's canonization.

"It was a very happy day," Palea said. "We waited a long, long time. It was overdue."

As a resident of Kalaupapa for 62 years, the former Hansen's disease patient said Damien's message is as pertinent today as it was in 1873, when the young Belgian priest first volunteered to serve at Kalaupapa.

"He teaches people to be giving," Palea said. "He had an unconditional love for his fellow men, and I hope it is this legacy that stays with him."

Also on hand for the veneration ceremonies was Honolulu resident Audrey Toguchi, the "miracle" woman who prayed to Damien and saw her incurable lung cancer disappear. Once it was recognized as a miracle by the Vatican, the cure was the final piece of the puzzle for Father Damien to become a saint.

"I think he really deserves the credit for being such a wonderful man," Toguchi said. "When he went to the Big Island, he realized the people of Hawaii were not savages. He worked with them; he accepted their culture. He reached out to the most undesirable and the most unloved."

The day began with a contingent of Molokai youths and two students from Damien Memorial School carrying the Damien relic (a heel bone sealed in a glass box, stored in a wooden box) down the switchback trail to Kalaupapa. The students and their chaperons were met at the bottom of the trail by the bishops and several dozen other interested souls.

Following a brief service at the trailhead, everyone hopped aboard a pair of old school buses for the dusty ride across the peninsula to Kalawao, the remote area where Damien did much of his work. After Mass at St. Philomena, the contingent piled back on the buses, headed for a simple buffet lunch at St. Francis Church in Kalaupapa.

After its two-week tour of the islands, the relic is scheduled today to be placed permanently in Honolulu's Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.

* Matthew Thayer can be reached at matthayer@mauinews.com.