Brian Vogrinc and Kay Ethington-Vogrinc inside the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu on April 25. Ethington-Vogrinc attributes her surprising healing from a lung disease to prayers she made to Servant of God Joseph Dutton asking for his intercession. (HCH Photo | Anna Weaver)
‘Give it to Dutton’
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
As the woman praying before the relics of Sts. Damien and Marianne rose from kneeling in front of the altar at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu on April 25, she wiped tears from her eyes.
Her emotions stemmed from her connection to the Molokai saints through someone who worked with them and is in the early days of his own path to sainthood: lay Catholic Joseph Dutton.
The woman, Kathleen “Kay” Ethington-Vogrinc, had come to Hawaii in April with a pilgrimage group of 27 people from the Diocese of Rockford in northern Illinois.
Kay’s father, Robert Darling, had a deep devotion to Dutton and attended Brother Dutton Elementary School in Beloit, Wisconsin, which closed in 2012.
The school was named after Dutton because he was raised in the nearby Janesville area of Wisconsin and he joined the military out of there during the Civil War.
“We kind of just grew up with the whole idea of, if anybody was sick, if we needed anything, ‘Give it to Dutton,’” Kay said as she retold her story outside of the cathedral basilica.
As an adult, Kay was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which later led to a diagnosis of severe pulmonary hypertension. As the condition worsened, she had difficulty breathing. But during a medical evaluation at the hospital, as she was praying to Jesus and to Dutton, her lung issues mysteriously disappeared.
Two friends were also praying in the hospital chapel to Dutton for Kay’s healing at the same time.
“One of the first things I felt was joy and the realization that although I was laying down, the breathing seemed to be better,” she said. “It was completely gone.”
“I truly believed [God] used Dutton,” Kay said of her healing.
In 2013, she and her father submitted her story, the testimony of her friends, and the testimony and documentation of her doctor to the Diocese of Honolulu.
Bishop Larry Silva recounted in an April 26 email that, at the time, he had let Kay and her family know that “it was premature to credit the healing to Joseph Dutton as an indication of his sainthood, because Dutton’s cause had not yet been opened, and therefore he was not yet even on the Vatican’s ‘radar screen.’”
“Now with the formal opening of his cause in a couple of weeks, we can take a second look at this and possibly submit the testimonials now,” Bishop Silva told the Herald.
While the Rockford pilgrimage group wasn’t able to visit Kalaupapa in person due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions to the peninsula, they did fly to topside Molokai and were able to fly over the Kalaupapa area.
