Pope backs sainthood for Belgian
He approved a second miracle for a 19th-century priest who tended to leprosy patients in Hawaii.
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI yesterday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of a 19th-century Belgian priest who ministered to leprosy patients in Hawaii, opening the way for sainthood.
Benedict declared that a Honolulu woman's recovery in 1999 from terminal lung cancer was the miracle needed for canonization of the Rev. Damien de Veuster. The miracle was attributed to the intercession of the late priest, to whom the woman, Audrey Toguchi, had prayed.
The approval means that Father Damien, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995, will be canonized at a date still to be set.
Born Joseph de Veuster in 1840, Damien went to Hawaii in 1864 and joined other missionaries of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Nine years later he began ministering to leprosy patients on the remote Kalaupapa peninsula of Molokai island, where some 8,000 people had been banished amid an epidemic in Hawaii in the 1850s.
The priest eventually contracted the disease, also known as Hansen's disease, and died in 1889 at 49.
Damien was beatified after the Vatican declared that the 1987 recovery of a nun in the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary order was a miracle. The nun recovered from an illness after praying to Damien. After beatification, a second miracle is needed for sainthood.
The Vatican said that a date for canonization was not expected to be set until February.
