Father Damien or Saint Damien of Molokai, SS.CC. or Saint Damien De Veuster ( or ; 3 January 1840 – 15 April 1889), born Jozef De Veuster, was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a missionary religious institute. He was recognized for his ministry, which he led from 1873 until his death in 1889, in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi to people with leprosy (Hansen's disease), who lived in government-mandated medical quarantine in a settlement on the Kalaupapa Peninsula of Molokai.
During this time, he taught the Catholic faith to the people of Hawaii. Father Damian also cared for the patients and established leaders within the community to build houses, schools, roads, hospitals, and churches. He dressed residents' ulcers, built a reservoir, made coffins, dug graves, shared pipes, and ate poi with them, providing both medical and emotional support.
After eleven years of caring for the physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of those in the leper colony, Father Damian contracted leprosy. He continued with his work despite the infection but finally succumbed to the disease on 15 April 1889. Father Damian also had tuberculosis which worsened his condition, but some believe that the reason he volunteered in the first place was due to his illness of tuberculosis.
Father Damian has been described as a "martyr of charity". Damien De Veuster is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church. In the Anglican Communion and other Christian denominations, Damian is considered the spiritual patron for leprosy and outcasts. Father Damian Day, 15 April, the day of his death, is also a minor statewide holiday in Hawaii. Father Damian is the patron saint of the Diocese of Honolulu and of Hawaii.
Father Damian was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on 11 October 2009. Libert H. Boeynaems, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia, calls him "the Apostle of the Lepers." Damian De Veuster's feast day is 10 May.
Early life
Father Damian was born Jozef ("Jef") De Veuster, the youngest of seven children and fourth son of the Flemish corn merchant Joannes Franciscus ("Frans") De Veuster and his wife Anne-Catherine ("Cato") Wouters in the village of Tremelo in Flemish Brabant in rural Belgium on 3 January 1840. His older sisters Eugénie and Pauline became nuns, and his older brother Auguste (Father Pamphile) joined the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (Picpus Fathers). Jozef was forced to quit school at age 13 to work on the family farm. His father sent him to a college at Braine-le-Comte to prepare for a commercial profession, but as a result of a mission given by the Redemptorists in 1858, Joseph decided to pursue a religious vocation.
Jozef entered the novitiate of the Fathers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary at Louvain and took in religion the name of Damian, presumably after the first Saint Damian, a fourth-century physician and martyr. He was admitted to the religious profession on 7 October 1860.
His superiors thought that he was not a good candidate for the priesthood because he lacked education. However, he was not considered unintelligent. Because he learned Latin well from his brother, his superiors decided to allow him to become a priest. During his religious studies, Damian prayed daily before a picture of St. Francis Xavier, patron of missionaries, to be sent on a mission. Three years later when his brother Father Pamphile (Auguste) could not travel to Hawaiʻi as a missionary because of illness, Damian was allowed to take his place.
Mission in Hawaii
On 19 March 1864, Damian arrived at Honolulu Harbor on Oʻahu. He was ordained into the priesthood on 21 May 1864, at what is now the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.
In 1865, Damian was assigned to the Catholic Mission in North Kohala on the island of Hawaii. While he was serving in several parishes on Oʻahu, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was struggling with a labor shortage and a public health crisis. Many of the Native Hawaiian parishioners had high mortality rates due to infectious diseases such as leprosy (from which he later died), smallpox, cholera, influenza, syphilis, and whooping cough, brought to the Hawaiian Islands by foreign traders, sailors and immigrants. Thousands of Hawaiians died of such diseases, to which they had not acquired immunity.