[ RELIGION ]
STAR-BULLETIN / 1998
Monsignor Robert Sarno and Sister Mary Laurence Hanley with a portrait of Mother Marianne Cope, who succeeded Father Damien in caring for leprosy victims in Kalaupapa and on Oahu.
Journey to sainthood
begins for caregiver
of leprosy victimsThe Vatican affirms that
the nun, who died in 1918,
was a person of "heroic virtue"
The first step toward official recognition as a saint is on the horizon for Mother Marianne Cope, who died in 1918 after 30 years of caring for leprosy patients in Hawaii.
Vatican theologians affirmed last week that the Franciscan nun was a person of "heroic virtue." The unanimous decision of nine priests, along with the 1996 recommendation of six historians who reviewed the case, will be presented to a panel of cardinals who make the decisions in the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
They are expected to recommend that Pope John Paul II declare Cope "venerable," the first of three steps in the church's process of declaring sainthood for people who lived exemplary lives.
Father Peter Gumpel, the Vatican examiner, told members of the Third Order of Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse, N.Y., that the declaration could come in 2004, said Sister Mary Laurence Hanley, who has directed the sainthood cause for 20 years from the New York headquarters of the religious order.
DAMIEN MUSEUM
A 1886 photograph of Mother Marianne Cope, who went to Molokai in 1883 with six Franciscan Sisters to care for victims of the devastating effects of Hanson's disease.
"There were more than 2,000 causes at the door in Rome, and they only hear about 30 each year," said Hanley. "We were promised we were in the first division to be heard.
"Anything worthwhile is not achieved in a short time," said Hanley. "Mother Marianne was an extraordinary servant of God. It would be unfair if she were not recognized for her virtue and contributions to our society."
Cope was the superior of the order in New York when she answered the call for help from the kingdom of Hawaii, where leprosy had become epidemic. She brought six other nuns here in 1883. Others joined them as the Franciscans operated a Kakaako leprosy hospital, opened a Maui hospital and an Oahu home for the children of patients.
Cope took sisters to Kalaupapa in 1888, just months before Father Damien DeVeuster died of the disease after 16 years of service there. The pope beatified Damien in 1995, the second step of the sainthood process. The nuns carried on his work, operating an infirmary and opening a home for women and girls, and later a home for boys.
Cope's grave is still tended by Franciscan nuns, two of whom are currently assigned to Kalaupapa.
More than 50 Hawaii women are in the religious order, which is the sponsor of St. Francis Medical Center and St. Francis School for girls. Among them is Molokai-born Sister Marion Kikukawa, who is vice postulator for the Cope cause in Rome.
Although the cause for sainthood was not taken up officially until 1983, Hanley said she started research on Cope 30 years ago while she was still teaching. She read journals by Cope's contemporary Sister Leopoldina Burns.
Along the way, Hanley and the late O.A. Bushnell co-authored a Cope biography, "Song of Pilgrimage and Exile."
"Mother Marianne has given us such an example of courage, faith and dedication ... she is a model for people today," said the current head of the religious order.
"The love of all God's people that she had, and her whole hope of creating a better place for people, and a place of healing, those are all attitudes we need to have displayed in the world today," said Sister Grace Anne Dillenschneider, Franciscan general minister.
Altogether, some 27 volumes of testimony and historical documents were collected for the Cope cause.
Supporters are ready to press the cause along to step two, beatification, which requires a miracle. A tribunal of the Syracuse diocese interviewed doctors and has prepared a report about a 1992 incident involving a 14-year-old girl. Expected to die after multiple organ failure, the girl recovered completely after friends and family invoked Mother Marianne's help and a relic was placed on the unconscious girl.
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