In the face of incredible human suffering, Father Damien offered hope. It would make the humble Catholic priest the most revered religious figure in Hawai'i history.
Damien's devotion to the people he served — the outcasts of Hansen's disease exiled to a remote corner of the Hawaiian kingdom — and his willingness to work among them sent him to an early grave. But it could ultimately make him a saint in the Catholic Church.
Born Joseph de Veuster in 1840 to Belgium farmers, he joined the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts Congregation in 1859. He changed his name to Brother Damien.
Damien arrived in Hawai'i as a missionary in March 1864 and was ordained to the priesthood two months later. He spent eight years on the Big Island before he volunteered to work among the patients at Kalawao on Moloka'i's Kalaupapa Peninsula.
For several weeks after he arrived in May 1873, Damien slept at night near an open graveyard where wild pigs came to root among the corpses.
During his time on the Big Island, Damien had learned carpentry and farming, and he applied these skills to help the patients at Kalawao. He built churches, homes and a water system. He planted trees and organized schools.
When he was not building structures in the rapidly growing settlement, he tended to the sick and buried the dead. He also urged kingdom officials in Honolulu to support his cause.
And as the number of children arriving continued to grow, Damien would spend time with them, sometimes making toys out of scrap lumber.
Damien's unconditional acceptance of the patients led to his contracting the same disease 12 years after his arrival. He died in 1889 among the people he loved, grateful that he was dying from their disease. He was 49.
For his life of selfless devotion, Damien was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995, one step away from sainthood.
