Pope Benedict XVI prays the Angelus, Oct. 11, in St. Peter’s Square after canonizing St. Damien, who is pictured in the center tapestry hanging from the front of St. Peters Basilica. (HCH photo | Anna Weaver)
This is a reprint of the story published in the Oct. 16, 2009, Hawaii Catholic Herald on the canonization of St. Damien de Veuster. Oct. 11 marks the 10th anniversary of that historic event.
Hawaii has a saint!
‘It has finally happened and we are all here. God is good.’
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI placed Father Damien de Veuster in the company of canonized saints on Oct. 11 in a glorious liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica attended by thousands of pilgrims from around the world.
Eleven patient-residents of Kalaupapa, and hundreds of other Hawaii travelers, were on hand to witness the event that had been longed for ever since the famed Belgian missionary to Hawaii’s Hansen’s disease patients died on Molokai 120 years ago.
Said patient Winnie Harada in the basilica immediately after the two-hour ceremony ended: “It has finally happened and we are all here. God is good.”
The pope canonized four others, calling all five “shining examples” of Christian love.
Shortly after the canonization ceremony started at 10 a.m., Archbishop Angelo Amato, prefect for the Vatican Congregation for the Saints, presented to the pope the names of the candidates for canonization. The five postulators, the chief sainthood advocates for each of the candidates, stood alongside him.
A brief biography for each was then read in Italian. “Padre Damiano” was the third.
Following the singing of the litany of the saints, the pope pronounced in Latin a solemn decree of canonization, reciting the name “Iosephu Damianum de Veuster” at exactly 10:30 a.m.
As the choir erupted into a grand “Amen” and mighty “Alleluia,” relics of the new saints were placed on the altar. Carrying the relic of Father Damien, a lock of his hair, was Sister Maria Rosa Ferreiro, superior general of the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, accompanied by Audrey Toguchi and Dr. Walter Chang.
Toguchi is the Aiea retired school teacher whose cure from cancer was the miracle needed for Damien’s canonization. Dr. Chang is her doctor who first verified the cure.
The five postulators then lined up to greet Pope Benedict after which the pope intoned the Gloria and the Mass continued.
In his homily, Pope Benedict said the newly canonized had typified the Christian vocation of radical conversion and self-sacrifice made “with no thought of human calculation and advantage.”
Of St. Damien, he said, “His missionary activity, which gave him so much joy, reaches its summit in charity. Not without fear and repugnance, he chose to go to the island of Molokai to serve the leprosy patients who were there, abandoned by all.”
“He invites us to open our eyes toward the ‘leprosies’ that disfigure the humanity of our brothers and sisters and that today still call, more than for our generosity, for the charity of our serving presence,” he said.
Speaking of all the new saints, the pope said, “Their perfection, in the logic of the faith that is sometimes humanly incomprehensible, consists in no longer placing themselves at the center, but in choosing to go against the current by living according to the Gospel.”
The pope delivered his sermon in various languages, though English was not among them. A Belgian pilgrim told the Hawaii Catholic Herald after Mass that the pope’s segment on Damien was spoken in Flemish, French and German.
Honolulu Bishop Larry Silva was among the seven cardinals, nine archbishops, 14 bishops and 20 priests concelebrating. Father Christopher Keahi, regional superior for the Sacred Hearts Fathers and Brothers in Hawaii also concelebrated.
Change in venue
The canonization Mass was supposed to take place in St. Peter’s Square but a last minute Vatican decision to follow a rain plan moved it into the basilica. The Roman skies had been filled with lightning, thunder and rain the two nights before the canonization, but canonization day turned out to be bright and clear, with blue skies and sunshine.
The shift in venue, however, meant that about 40,000, including many from Hawaii, had to view the Mass on the square’s giant TV screens. The TV screens did offer an advantage of being able to view close-up parts of the liturgy not visible from many sections of the basilica inside.
The Vatican estimated 50,000 attended the canonization.
The 11 Kalaupapa patients present sat with their caregivers to the right of the main altar, relatively close to the action, but still blocked from viewing the canonization proclamation by one of the massive columns that hold up the altar’s canopy.
Nevertheless, they were in great spirits.
“After all these years, it happened in my lifetime,” said Pauline Chow, as the organ blared at the end of Mass. “I’m happy.”
Meli Watanuki said quietly, “I feel really happy. He is our saint. This is the day we were looking for.”
Two Hawaii pilgrims who got into the basilica were Carl and Kathy Shriver. As they made their way out of St. Peter’s Square after the Mass, the St. Elizabeth, Aiea, parishioners talked about how beautiful the Mass was.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Carl said. “I was amazed by it — amazed, in awe of how it was done.”
Comparing Damien to the other newly canonized, Carl said, “Maybe I’m prejudiced, but he had the best resume there. This should have been done for him long ago.”
Jen Lopez, of St. Anthony Parish, Kailua, sat out the canonization in St. Peter’s Square and made friends with some tourists who had stopped by to see what was going on. She had expected the Hawaii pilgrims to sit together in a group, a plan that did not work out with the change of place and resulting rush by thousands of pilgrims for the limited basilica seating.
“It was still fascinating to watch the whole process” from the outside, Lopez said, including seeing people at the far reaches of the square standing, sitting and following along with the Mass, though most outside were unable to receive the small amount of Communion served to the crowd in the square.
Lopez’ aunt Alvina Lopez found a seat inside the basilica with about 50 other Hawaii pilgrims behind the altar. “We got to see everything from there,” she said.
“If you take away the crowd and stuff, it was very moving,” Alvina Lopez said. Her highlight was seeing Audrey Toguchi present the relic to the pope with Dr. Walter Chang and Sister Maria Rosa.
“When she went up, that’s where you finally understood what was going on,” she said.
At the end of the Mass, the pope spoke from the steps of the basilica to pilgrims who filled the square. They cheered, applauded and waved banners as each of the saints was named. Addressing English-speaking people, the pope said he hoped the new saints would “inspire you by the example of their holy lives.”
The church universal
While in the metal detector lines at around 7 a.m., waiting to get into St. Peter’s Square, Sister Helene Wood, superior of Hawaii’s Sacred Hearts Sisters, said that being in Rome and experiencing the crush of the crowd offered an irreplaceable “sense of the church universal.”
That is why she had offered passage to the canonization to any one of her sisters “if they could walk and carry their own baggage.” Ten came.
At a vigil ceremony in the Basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva on the evening before the canonization, former St. Damien postulator Sacred Hearts Father Emilio Vega Garcia predicted that the new saint would have more impact in the world’s developing nations than in the U.S. or Europe.
“I am very happy for the sick people, for the isolated people, the people with HIV-AIDS,” he said. “Damien is probably not the saint for Europe and America, but for Asia, Africa and South America. This is joy for all of them.”
Father Vega Garcia said he hoped Damien’s canonization will be a special inspiration for young people preparing for the religious life.
“This canonization is more an opportunity for the dreamers in the church,” he said. “Father Damien was really a dreamer, in everything, every day” who did things no one thought possible.
“But he never had any miracles [to help him],” he said. “Thanks to Damien, the miracles are for us now.”
Father William Petrie, the superior of the Sacred Hearts Fathers in the U.S., said he was “exhilarated” by Father Damien’s canonization.
Father Petrie, who said he was “totally transformed” after reading the life of Father Damien at age 16, went on to become a Sacred Hearts priest who worked with Hansen’s disease patients in India where he founded the Damien Institute.
“I never thought I would live to see this day,” he said.
President Barack Obama sent a presidential delegation headed by Miguel H. Diaz, U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, to the canonization Mass.
Its other members were Sen. Daniel Akaka; New Jersey congressman Donald M. Payne; Stephen Prokop, the Superintendent of Kalaupapa National Historical Park; and Sister Carol Ann Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association of the United States. Bishop Larry Silva was also appointed as a member.
The other new saints canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 11 were:
St. Jeanne Jugan, who was born in northern France in 1792. She formed a small prayer community and, in 1839, brought home a sick and blind elderly widow, giving the woman her own bed. Caring for the abandoned elderly became the primary focus of her religious order and remains so today for the approximately 2,700 Little Sisters of the Poor.
St. Zygmunt Felinski, a former archbishop of Warsaw, Poland, and founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary. He was deported to Russia and, after being freed, worked among the poor farmers of Ukraine and Poland, founding schools for rural children. He died in 1895, and today the church sees him as an intercessor for all who are persecuted.
St. Francisco Coll Guitart, a Spanish Dominican priest who founded the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the 19th century. He was famed for his evangelical preaching, aimed especially at Catholics who had lapsed from the practice of the faith. His popular missions continued until his death in 1875 at the age of 62.
St. Rafael Arnaiz Baron, a 20th-century Spanish Trappist brother known for his humility and life of prayer. As a student of architecture in the 1930s, he suddenly broke off his training to enter the contemplative life. Stricken with diabetes, he died in 1938 at age 27, and his prayerful devotion and his spiritual writings led people to describe him as a great mystic.
Catholic News Service’s John Thavis contributed to this story.
