ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kathy Sniffen, left, and Sister Helene Wood burned red wax yesterday at the St. Stephen Diocesan Center. The wax is used to seal the documents and testimony that verify an alleged miracle attributed to Father Damien de Veuster.
Roman Catholic Church officials in Honolulu completed their investigation into an alleged miracle attributed to Father Damien de Veuster -- findings they are hopeful will make the revered minister to Molokai's leprosy victims a saint. Damien’s sainthood
probe endsA tribunal turns in its report
on the alleged miracle attributed
to Kalaupapa's patronBy Matt Sedensky
Associated PressA formal tribunal held its final session yesterday and handed its report to the Rev. Emilio Vega Garcia, who is overseeing Damien's sainthood cause for the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Garcia has been in Honolulu since February investigating the miracle attributed to Damien. He departed last night for Rome, where the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints was expected to formally receive the tribunal's 190-page report in a ceremony next week.
The case involves a local woman who had lung cancer that doctors said was untreatable. Sister Helene Wood, the vice postulator for Damien's sainthood, said the woman's tumor mysteriously shrank after she made two visits to the Kalaupapa settlement on Molokai in late 1998.
Doctors who treated the woman said the malignant tumor continued to decrease and the cancer eventually disappeared.
The tribunal began hearing testimony several weeks ago. Since then, the woman's doctors, family members and priests have testified before the seven-member church panel.
"I have no doubts about the people that were interviewed," said the Rev. Joseph Grimaldi, vicar general of the Diocese of Honolulu, who headed Damien's canonization cause locally.
"There was no negative testimony," said Patrick Downes, a diocesan spokesman.
At the home of Honolulu Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo yesterday, the members of the diocesan commission investigating the miracle assembled to formally end their work. They gathered in a circle in the bishop's library, singing and praying for Damien's canonization. On a small table, a statue of Damien was set next to a candle.
"It's in the hands of Rome now," Grimaldi said.
The diocesan commission's report said there was no scientific explanation for the patient's recovery. The alleged miracle must withstand the scrutiny of theologians, doctors and scientists at the Vatican before they recommend his sainthood. It requires the pope's approval.
Revered worldwide, Damien ministered to thousands of society's untouchables who were banished to the isolated peninsula on Molokai and left to die.
Father Damien went to Kalaupapa in 1873 at age 33 to minister to leprosy patients. Since his death in 1889, Damien's sainthood has been urged, but an organized effort wasn't led on his behalf until 1936.
Damien reached the final step before sainthood -- beatification -- in 1995, 100 years after a French nun dying of a gastrointestinal illness miraculously recovered. She had begun a novena to Damien before slipping into unconsciousness.
The progress of the sainthood cause is news particularly welcomed in the tiny village of Kalaupapa, where members of the tiny St. Francis Church pray to Blessed Damien at their daybreak Mass.
"Hooray for Damien," said the Rev. Joseph Hendriks, pastor of St. Francis. "He's the first one in the whole world that came to the rescue" of leprosy patients.
Roman Catholic Church
