Cardinal Timothy Dolan spoke with the Hawaii Catholic Herald briefly after the luau about the celebration for St. Marianne. Here are excerpts from that conversation.
On the invitation to Molokai
When Bishop Silva offered his gracious invitation, it wasn’t so much to a place, as to people, namely a person who’s had a towering influence in my life, Father Damien, and then someone whom I’ve recently fallen in love with — St. Marianne Cope, because I am so proud of her as a citizen of New York State.
But I had known about St. Damien since I was a little boy. In second grade I can remember my teacher reading us the story about St. Damien and I was so enchanted by him. And I’ve always had a deep devotion to him. He has been a part of my morning prayers every since I was a little boy growing up.
So now, when Bishop Larry said, “Would you come? It would be great to have the cardinal from New York and the president of the conference as we locally celebrate our new saint, St. Marianne Cope,” I said, “You bet I will. This has been a lifetime dream.” So thanks be to God, I was able to come.
On the need for new saints
There will always be what you might call the “uns” of the world. There’s always going to be the unwanted. There’s always going to be the undocumented. There’s always going to be the unhoused. There’s always going to be the unemployed. There’s always going to be the unborn. There’s always going to be those considered unclean and unwanted and untouchable, and those are where followers of Jesus and his church need to be.
And that’s why we need the light of people like Damien and Marianne to remind us that there are still “uns” in the world. And the church is always on the side of the “uns.”
On Kalaupapa and Kalawao
It is sacred ground. Bishop Larry has been calling this a pilgrimage, and a pilgrimage it is. We are on a journey to a sacred spot, to be in communion with those who were and those who are. And to be there and especially to be at Father Damien’s church and to try to imagine where his house was and were the residence was for his beloved people and to just picture him just walking there. That was very vivid in my mind.
I like to follow the advice of St Ignatius Loyola who said a beautiful way to pray is what he called contemplation, which is really letting our spiritual imagination run wild and to contemplate ourselves in those settings. So to imagine, to contemplate Damien in prayer in that chapel, to image Marianne in those rooms and on the porch in her rocking chair, those are powerful images for me. And it’s so much easier to do, it’s easier to pray, it’s easier to feel in communion with them in the communion of saints when you are right here. And that is why we need pilgrimages; it makes it real.
On St. Marianne’s inspiration
What I found most appealing would be her spontaneously generous acceptance of an invitation to leave home and to tend to some of the poorest and most forgotten people. Logically, it was crazy. Naturally it was crazy. A lot of people said, “Mother we don’t need to do that; we don’t have enough sisters. We have enough work to do here; we don’t know what we are getting into.” If I were her bishop I would probably be telling her the same thing.
I am glad that she said, this I detect to be an invitation from Jesus to serve him and his people. So that spontaneously generous act of obedience to respond to that invitation. That’s what moves me. And then, the perseverance, not just to stay for a couple years to get it settled, but never to go home again, to make your home where your people are. Those two things inspire me immensely.