Father Damien

VATICAN CITY – A 19th-century Belgian priest who ministered to leprosy patients in Hawaii will be declared a saint Oct. 11 at a Vatican ceremony presided over by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Rev. Damien de Veuster's canonization date was set Saturday during a meeting between Benedict and cardinals at the Apostolic Palace.De Veuster will be canonized along with three other people, the Vatican said.

In July, Benedict approved a miracle attributed to the priest's intercession, declaring that a Honolulu woman's recovery in 1999 from terminal lung cancer was the miracle needed for him to be made a saint. He was beatified — a step toward sainthood — in 1995 by Pope John Paul II.
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.

The Vatican's saint-making procedures require that a miracle attributed to the candidate's intercession be confirmed in order for him or her to be beatified. Damien de Veuster was beatified after the Vatican declared that the 1987 recovery of a nun of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary was a miracle. The nun recovered from an illness after praying to Damien. After beatification, a second miracle is needed for sainthood. The Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints said Audrey Toguchi's 1999 recovery from lung cancer defied medical explanation, and in July, Benedict agreed. Toguchi, too, had prayed to Damien.

You may wonder why I am posting this, but Father Damien is one of my favorite characters. When I was confirmed in the Catholic Church, as was customary I added the name of a saint to my own name. This was not a legal name change and I doubt anyone much even knew it, but I took the name of Damien. When I entered the Carmelites, there were already so many Michael's, for a while it looked like I would have to change my name, in which case, I could have become Brother (later Father) Damien, too.

I was fascinated by the story of this man who had the courage to minister to lepers and then became one himself. It struck me as a great imitation of Jesus, who Christians believed loved all suffering people so much that he became human himself to save the whole world.

Bonnie Yarbrough, by the way, for some reason remembered this about me, as she reminded me a few years back. Whenever she referred to me in a blog she kept, in order to preserve my anonymity, she would call me Father Damien.

Anyway, Damien took on added importance several years ago for a group of Catholic brothers I knew in Washington, DC who had taken on the care of AIDS patients at a time when we knew little about that disease and it was very frightening. People thought you might get AIDS just by touching an AIDS patient or breathing the same air, and many who were suffering were thrown out of their homes by frightened families. The brothers took them in and tended them with a truly Christ-like care. Later they were joined in this project by Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her nuns. The Carmelites in Washington sometimes said Mass for them at their small residence. They placed their whole ministry under the patronage of Damien of Molokai.

So I am sure it is a special joy to them -- and none of them ever contracted AIDS, by the way -- to have Damien's sanctity recognized.