Is that a halo forming? The late artist Big Island Dietrich Varez, who has created block prints of St. Damien and St. Marianne in his singular monochromatic style, also made one of “Brother” Joseph Dutton in 2013. The civil war veteran served Kalaupapa patients for the last 45 years of his life primarily as a “dresser of sores.” The print includes the American and Hawaiian flags in tribute to Dutton’s patriotism and a desk, pen and paper in recognition of his prolific letter writing. (HCH file photo)
Hawaii Catholic Herald
A third Molokai saint? Bishop Larry Silva has moved forward the possibility of a third canonized saint emerging from the five-square mile Molokai peninsula already sanctified by the lives of 8,000 people forcibly quarantined there for having Hansen’s disease.
A one-page edict, dated, read and posted by the bishop on May 29, states that he had received a formal written request “to initiate the cause for beatification and canonization of the Servant of God Joseph Dutton, layman.”
The request came from Waldery Hilgeman, Dutton’s Rome-based postulator, his official canonization advocate, on May 24 at the behest of the Joseph Dutton Guild, a group the bishop established in 2015 with the mission of researching Dutton’s life, spreading knowledge about him and encouraging devotion to him, as well as addressing the financial and logistical needs for his sainthood cause.
Ira Joseph Dutton
Ira Joseph Dutton was a Civil War veteran who served in the leprosy settlement of Kalaupapa from 1886 to 1931, in atonement, he said, for his turbulent post-war years, assisting both St. Damien de Veuster and St. Marianne Cope in their saintly work.
The document, addressed to the “faithful of the Diocese of Honolulu,” is a request for “any pertinent information … for or against the eventual beatification and canonization” of Dutton. The document gives instructions as to where to send the information by the June 30, 2021, deadline.
Bishop Silva read the edict at the Saturday vigil Mass in the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace and, after Mass, attached it to the church’s mauka side door, where it will remain for the month of June. He also asked that it be mounted on the doors of St. Damien of Molokai Church in Kaunakakai and St. Francis Church in Kalaupapa, published in the Hawaii Catholic Herald (see page 2) and posted on diocesan websites.
The formation of the Joseph Dutton Guild six years ago was the first official step in the canonization process.
The guild appointed the postulator, the person designated to represent the cause at the Vatican and to prepare the substantial amount of documentation required.
The guild chose Hilgeman, a postulator for several other causes, including that of American Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement. Hilgeman trained under Msgr. Robert Sarno, veteran official at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints who assisted in the cases of St. Damien and St. Marianne.
The edict is part of the present phase of three inquiries — of the local faithful, of the bishops of the San Francisco province to which the Diocese of Honolulu belongs, and of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.
The inquiry of the faithful seek positive or negative information about the candidate’s potential for canonization, for example, testimony of a person’s private devotion to Dutton or an experience of his intercessory power in prayer.
If the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints finds nothing that would indicate the cause should not be introduced, it gives the cause a Nihil Obstat, allowing it to proceed.
The “formal” process begins when the postulator sends the petition to the Congregation and they accept it, Bishop Silva said. “This is probably several months away — to be optimistic.”
After the inquiry phase comes the “historical cause” in which the guild researches Dutton’s writings and historical information to help the postulator prepare the “positio,” the position paper regarding the cause, to be presented to the Congregation.
“It is a very complex process, but important,” Bishop Silva said, “because when the church proposes someone for universal devotion and emulation, it wants to be as certain as it can be that the candidate is deserving of such an honor. We pray that Joseph Dutton will be so!”
The bishop noted that, although the saint candidate is often referred to as “Brother Dutton,” having been given that affectionate designation by Father Damien, he was not a religious brother but a layman.
Other principals in Dutton’s cause include the vice-postulator, Father Siegfred Dosdos, picked by Hilgeman at Bishop Silva’s recommendation to be the postulator’s local representative. Father Dosdos is administrator of St. Benedict Church on the Big Island of Hawaii.
The bishop also appointed Father Mark Gantley, judicial vicar of the Diocese of Honolulu, as the “promotor of justice,” the person, he said, “who assures that a completely truthful examination of the candidate’s exemplary holiness of life and intercessory powers is done.”
He named as notary Roxanne Torres, who is the administrative assistant in the diocese’s Canonical Affairs Office, and Msgr. Sarno as the “bishop’s representative,” empowered to act in the bishop’s name in matters related to the cause.
The monsignor “has been extremely encouraging in this process for Joseph Dutton,” Bishop Silva said.
The bishop also established a fund to help pay for the process and named retired Deacon Walter Yoshimitsu as its administrator.
Ira Dutton was born to Protestant parents in Stowe, Vermont, on April 27, 1843, and raised in Wisconsin.
Deacon Joseph Almuena helps Bishop Larry Silva tape his edict on the cause for the beatification and canonization of Joseph Dutton to the mauka door of the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace May 29. The edict asks the Catholic faithful in the diocese for information, positive or negative, about the sainthood candidate that might assist in his cause. (Photo courtesy of Miguel Heraclio)
He fought in the U.S. Civil War, with the Union Army, rising to the rank of captain with the 13th Wisconsin Volunteers. Discharged in 1866, Dutton then endured several tumultuous years with a failed marriage and alcohol abuse.
He worked difficult jobs to support himself, including the bringing of the remains of soldiers back from Civil War battlefields to the common burial ground that is now Arlington National Cemetery.
Dutton found solace in Catholicism and was baptized in the faith on his 40th birthday, April 27, 1883. He took Joseph as his baptismal name. He entered a monastery for a short time, but that did not work out.
In penitence for his chaotic post-war years, he traveled to Molokai and, on July 29, 1886, joined Father Damien in his work with leprosy patients. St. Damien affectionately called his American assistant “Brother.”
Dutton helped Father Damien until the priest’s death three years later in 1889, and remained in Kalaupapa for an additional 42 years, administering the Baldwin Home for boys and men. St. Marianne during that time cared for girls and women at Bishop Home.
When Dutton became ill toward the end of his life, he was transferred to St. Francis Hospital in Honolulu where he died on March 26, 1931. His grave lies next to that of St. Damien on the grounds of St. Philomena Church in Kalawao.
If Joseph Dutton is canonized, he will be Kalaupapa’s third saint. St. Damien was canonized in 2009 and St. Marianne in 2012.
If you have any pertinent information for or against the beatification and canonization of Dutton, send it to Father Siegfred Dosdos, vice-postulator of the Cause, at sainthoodfordutton@rcchawaii.org or by regular mail at 84-5140 Painted Church Road, Captain Cook, HI 96704-8409. All information will remain confidential.
