St. Damien of Molokai

St. Damien of Molokai (born January 3, 1840, Tremelo, Belgium—died April 15, 1889, Molokai, Hawaii [U.S.]; canonized October 11, 2009; feast day May 10) was a Belgian priest who devoted his life to missionary work in Hawaii helping people with Hansen’s disease (leprosy). In 2009 he was declared a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. He is venerated as the patron saint of people with leprosy, HIV and AIDS patients, and those suffering from incurable illness.

Life and mission in Hawaii

Joseph de Veuster (also spelled Jozef De Veuster or Deveuster) was born in rural Belgium, the youngest of seven children. He was educated at the college of Braine-le-Comte, and in 1858 he joined the Society of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (Picpus Fathers) at Leuven, Belgium. At this time he took the name Damien in honor of the 4th-century Christian martyr and physician. In place of his brother, Father Pamphile, who had been stricken by illness, he went as a missionary to the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands in 1863. He reached Honolulu in 1864 and was ordained a priest the same year. Moved by the miserable condition of people with leprosy, whom the Hawaiian government had deported to Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai, he volunteered to take charge of the settlement.

Known for his compassion, Father Damien provided spiritual, physical, and emotional comfort to those suffering from the debilitating incurable disease, a population that has historically been ostracized as “unclean,” kept out of society’s sight, and often offered little treatment. He served as both pastor and physician to the colony and undertook many projects to better the conditions there. He improved water and food supplies and housing and founded two orphanages, receiving help from other priests for only 6 of his 16 years on Molokai. In 1884 he contracted leprosy and refused to leave for treatment. He succumbed to the painful, deforming disease five years later. He was originally buried at the colony, as he requested, but his remains were transferred to Leuven in 1936. His right hand was returned to his original grave in 1995 soon after his beatification (the second stage in declaring a holy person a saint).

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Legacy and canonization

Rumors before and after Father Damien’s death accused him of immorality, but he was exonerated by an investigation held shortly after his death. Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a famously passionate 6,000-word defense of Father Damien after interviewing local Hawaiians during his travels in 1889. Stevenson—in his rebuke to C.M. Hyde of Honolulu, a reverend doctor who had slandered the priest—penned:

If I have at all learned the trade of using words to convey truth and to arouse emotion, you have at last furnished me with a subject. For it is in the interest of all mankind, and the cause of public decency in every quarter of the world, not only that Damien should be righted, but that you and your letter should be displayed at length, in their true colors, to the public eye.

In 1965 Hawaii placed a statue of Father Damien in the National Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995 and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.