Mother Marianne Cope ministered to Hansen's disease patients for 35 years before dying there in 1918 at age 80.

In January, a key Vatican committee had unanimously voted to affirm the "heroic virtue" of Mother Marianne, a member of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis.

"It's a big day because the pope signed it," said Sister Mary Laurence Hanley, director of the nun's canonization cause at the religious order's headquarters in Syracuse, N.Y. "It happened so suddenly, we could not attend."

Hanley said that it was one of a series of decrees on sainthood causes approved today.

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." Mother Marianne brought six other nuns with her and never left, dying here in 1918 at age 80. She lived in Moloka'i's Kalaupapa settlement for the last five months of Father Damien's life after arriving to establish a women's home on the tiny peninsula.

The Kalaupapa workers are the only two with Hawai'i ties up for sainthood.

Next up in the sainthood process, Hanley said, is for Mother Marianne to be declared "blessed," which requires documentation of a miracle. Though they have already submitted materials and are hopeful, the miracle can't be definitively decided until she had been declared "venerable," as she was today, she said.

They will be putting forth a case from 1992 in New York in which a 14-year-old girl had a complete recovery from multiple organ system failure due to chemotherapy. First, a team of five medical specialists will discuss the case, and decide if the recovery was inexplicable. Then, a group of theologians "have to connect the prayers (to Mother Marianne) for intercession with her cure," Hanley said.

"We feel that in a year, we will know the decision of the miracle," she said. "Two doctors (at the Vatican who saw the case) in the beginning liked it and encouraged its presentation."