WOMEN / Faith: Hawaii ready for new Catholic saint !

Hawaii ready for new Catholic saint ! (again!)

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Carol Zimmermann

Tapestry of Blessed Marianne Cope (CNS photo from Reuters)

 
Three years ago the Hawaii Catholic Herald was on top of the canonization of one of Hawaii's own — St. Damien de Veuster, a Belgian priest who devoted his life to ministering on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, serving people with leprosy, now known as Hansen's disease. Once again the state is readying for the canonization of one of its own: Blessed Marianne Cope, who will be canonized Oct. 21. She succeeded St. Damien, spending the last 30 years of her life ministering on Molokai. She died on the island in 1918 at age 80. She was beatified in 2005.

This week's issue of the Hawaii Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Honolulu Diocese, has a special section about Mother Marianne that includes a tribute to the sister who directed her cause for decades and died last year, just days before the Vatican announced that the path for Mother Marianne's sainthood had been cleared.
The issue also features a timeline of Mother Marianne's path to sainthood, a preview of what Hawaii's pilgrims heading to Rome for the canonization can expect, and a story about the miracles attributed to her intercession.
The eight-page section also hightlights the six other saints to be canonized Oct. 21, including Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, known as the "Lily of the Mohawks" and the first Native American to be beatified. It also describes how the Diocese of Syracuse, N.Y., will be celebrating the canonization. It is in that diocese that Mother Marianne's religious community, the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, has a shrine and museum dedicated to the soon-to-be saint. The chapel at the motherhouse there has a reliquary containing her remains.