She’s only the second person with Hawai'i ties on the road to sainthood, the other being Father Damien.

On Friday, "her cause was unanimously accepted by the Vatican theologians who belong to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which oversees the beatification and canonization process," Sister William Marie Eleniki, Franciscan regional administrator, said today.

That means she’s now on her way to becoming the Venerable Mother Marianne Cope.

First, however, the process goes to a cardinal, then to Pope John Paul II, who is expected to approve her cause next year.

Once declared venerated, the next steps are beatification and then sainthood, both of which require documentation of miracles attributed to Mother Marianne.

Mother Marianne arrived in Hawai'i in 1883 after King David Kalakaua had asked for Mainland Catholic help for the children of Hansen’s disease (leprosy) patients in what was then being called Hawai'i’s "national affliction." The superior of her Franciscan convent in Syracuse, N.Y., Mother Marianne responded to the call and brought six other nuns with her. She never left the Islands, dying here in 1918 at age 80.

Mother Marianne lived in Kalaupapa for the last five months of Father Damien’s life after she had arrived to establish a women’s home on the tiny peninsula. She was very different from the stubborn Belgian priest, who defied authority and eventually came down with Hansen’s disease himself.

"She worked with authority," said Sister Mary Laurence Hanley, whose research frequently brought her to Hawai'i and who serves as the order’s "cause director" for Mother Marianne’s sainthood in Syracuse, N.Y. "She worked with the government more and tried to go through official channels as much as possible. She knew when to raise her voice (and) when it would do no good to do so."

A stickler for hygiene, Mother Marianne predicted that none of the nuns who worked with the patients here would contract the disease, Eleniki said. None has.

Mother Marianne’s legacy has spawned books, plays and songs, and she has been listed among the legendary figures in Hawai'i’s history and among the most notable women of Hawai'i. Besides creating the women’s home for Hansen's disease patients on Moloka'i, she also started what is now Maui Memorial Hospital, the first hospital on Maui. After Father Damien’s death, she took over administration of the men’s and boys’ home on Moloka'i.

Her order, the New York-based Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse, also has seen lasting benefits from her years of service.