1800s priest canonized for work with leprosy patients
HONOLULU – Most need wheelchairs. Their average age is 80.
Neither fact is stopping 11 elderly Hawaii leprosy patients from traveling 12,000 miles to the Vatican next month to watch as the Catholic Church canonizes Father Damien — a priest who cared for leprosy patients throughout the islands more than a century ago before dying of the disease himself.
Damien, who was born in Belgium as Joseph de Veuster, remains a beloved figure among many in Hawaii. In the 1870s, the leprosy patients Damien cared for were shunned by most people, even doctors, because of an intense stigma that was associated with the disease.
Today's patients from Kalaupapa, the isolated peninsula where Hawaii's leprosy patients were banished for more than 100 years, feel particularly close to Damien.
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Neither fact is stopping 11 elderly Hawaii leprosy patients from traveling 12,000 miles to the Vatican next month to watch as the Catholic Church canonizes Father Damien — a priest who cared for leprosy patients throughout the islands more than a century ago before dying of the disease himself.
Damien, who was born in Belgium as Joseph de Veuster, remains a beloved figure among many in Hawaii. In the 1870s, the leprosy patients Damien cared for were shunned by most people, even doctors, because of an intense stigma that was associated with the disease.
Today's patients from Kalaupapa, the isolated peninsula where Hawaii's leprosy patients were banished for more than 100 years, feel particularly close to Damien.