Hawaiian priest heads towards sainthood
flockwoodThe Associated Press
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of a 19th century Belgian priest who ministered to leprosy patients in Hawaii, opening the way for him to be declared a saint.
Benedict declared that a Honolulu woman’s recovery in 1999 from terminal lung cancer was the miracle needed for canonization of the Rev. Damien de Veuster. The miracle was attributed to the intercession of the late priest, to whom the woman, Audrey Toguchi, had prayed.
The approval means that the late priest, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995, will be canonized at a date still to be set.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints had said Toguchi’s recovery defied medical explanation, and on Thursday the pope told the sainthood office’s leader, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, that he agreed, the Vatican said.
“It’s such an exciting time in our lives that one of our men, one of us here in Hawaii, has attained the highest rank of sanctity and will soon be declared a saint in the church,” said the Rev. Christopher Keahi, head of the Sacred Hearts order of Hawaii.
Born Joseph de Veuster in 1840, Damien went to Hawaii in 1864 and joined other missionaries of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Nine years later he began ministering to leprosy patients on the remote Kalaupapa peninsula of Molokai island, where some 8,000 people had been banished amid an epidemic in Hawaii in the 1850s.
The priest eventually contracted the disease, also known as Hansen’s disease, and died in 1889 at 49.
Honolulu Bishop Larry Silva said canonization is important, “not simply as a recognition of the saintly heroism of Father Damien, but so that, following his example, we may all be renewed in holiness and in our dedication to those brothers and sisters who are most in need.”
The Vatican’s saint-making procedures require that a miracle attributed to the candidate’s intercession be confirmed in order to be beatified. Damien was beatified after the Vatican declared that the 1987 recovery of a Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary nun was a miracle. The nun recovered from an illness after praying to Damien.
After beatification, a second miracle is needed for sainthood.
A date for canonization was not expected to be set until February. Damien’s body was exhumed from his Molokai grave in 1936 and his remains sent back to Belgium for reburial. In 1995, a relic of his right hand was given back to the Hawaii diocese and returned to the Molokai grave.
The decree for Father Damien was one of 13 approved by the pope for people in various stages of the sainthood process.
July 6th, 2008 at 11:52 am
I suspect that there’s a reason why they wait a hundred years after someone’s death to proclaim him a saint. That way, no one who actually knew the person is around to give the rebuttal. And, with everyone’s favorite pope, JPII’s elimination of the position of devil’s advocate, the truth doesn’t even have a lawyer anymore.
In fact, few people really are saints. Maybe Damien was one of them; I don’t know. The contemporary accounts of his life and ministry give conflicting views. No less a reporter than Robert Louis Stevenson, in a book that was supposed to revive Damien’s reputation after it had been attacked by Protestants, described him as “shrewd, ignorant and bigoted” “grumbling” “essentially indiscreet and officious” “domineering in all his ways” “incurably unpopular with the Kanakas (Hawaiians)” “destitute of real authority.” Stevenson accused Damien of having a “lack of control” and “slovenly ways and false ideas of hygiene”
This hygiene business seems to be a recurring theme, though how clean one could be in a leper colony might be a question. In an era when nearly everyone was dirty and unhygienic by modern standards, he must have been particularly dirty to merit specific criticism on that note. He’s also described as a womanizer (not uncommon among priests of that age; most of them weren’t gay in those days, and the Powers That Be gave a wink and a nod to priests keeping mistresses), and a rebeller against church authority.
His case rather reminds me of that of the WWII Italian partisan nominated for sainthood in Morris West’s great novel “The Devil’s Advocate,” which has been reissued in a nice paperback edition in the Loyola Classics series, who may or may not have been a saint. One also wonders whether, in this day and age of modern medicine, it will become harder to “certify” miracles attributed to saints.
Maybe Damien’s highest and best use as a “saint” is his example on how to treat people with diseases that others don’t find pleasant. The Wikipedia article on him says:
“In both ecumenical religious and non-sectarian communities, Damien is being adopted as the symbol of how society should treat HIV/AIDS patients in defiance of the misconceptions of the disease, much like leprosy treatment was an outgrowth of misconceptions. Several Damien Centers have been established worldwide to serve people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.”