Priest who aided lepers in Hawaii to become saint

[Coventina]

Source: Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A 19th-century Belgian priest who ministered to leprosy patients in Hawaii, and died of the disease, will be declared a saint this year at a Vatican ceremony presided over by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Rev. Damien de Veuster's canonization date of Oct. 11 was set Saturday.

Born Joseph de Veuster in 1840, he took the name Damien and went to Hawaii in 1864 to join 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 age 49.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iFsrEHou8-Rz-fNCCgjcPuK0x6ZQD96G76M03

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He has been credited with two posthumous miracles in order to qualify for sainthood.

[Kingofalldems]

1. I reemember reading about him in grade school

A truly selfless man.

[Hawaii Hiker]

3. One of the great experiences in Hawaii is to

do the Molokai Mule Ride... http://www.muleride.com/

When you reach the bottom of the trail you then take a bus tour of the area that Father Damien worked at..

[emilyg]

2. Excellent.

[kickysnana]

4. About time. n/t

[GeorgeGist]

5. It's a miracle ...

that Catholics believe that God waits for the Pope to declare someone a saint.

[rug]

6. It's not unusual . . .

to post without a clue to what you're typing.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Canonization

[moobu2]

7. What if Damien's saintly character was all made up

by the press and the Catholic church seized upon this made up character for political advantage, and the rest as they say is history.

The most well-known treatise against Damien was by a Honolulu Presbyterian, Reverend C. M. Hyde, in a letter dated 2 August 1889 to a fellow pastor, Reverend H. B. Gage, who submitted it to a religious publication. Reverend Hyde wrote: (1889)

"‘DEAR BROTHER, - In answer to your inquiries about Father
Damien, I can only reply that we who knew the man are
surprised at the extravagant newspaper laudations, as if he
was a most saintly philanthropist. The simple truth is, he
was a coarse, dirty man, head-strong and bigoted. He was not
sent to Molokai, but went there without orders; did not stay
at the leper settlement (before he became one himself), but
circulated freely over the whole island (less than half the
island is devoted to the lepers), and he came often to
Honolulu. He had no hand in the reforms and improvements
inaugurated, which were the work of our Board of Health, as
occasion required and means were provided. He was not a pure
man in his relations with women, and the leprosy of which he
died should be attributed to his vices and carelessness.
Others have done much for the lepers, our own ministers, the
government physicians, and so forth, but never with the
Catholic idea of meriting eternal life. - Yours, etc.,"

LINK

It sounds like a description of one of the alcoholic child molesting priests at this rural catholic boarding school I attended as a kid.

[Coventina]

8. You have to bear in mind that the Protestants were extremely anti-Catholic

My personal feeling is that each side probably exaggerated their story and the truth probably is somewhere in the middle.

[rug]

9. Did any of them become lepers?

[moobu2]

10. Cirrhosis of the liver more likely .