MARIANNE COPE

The Vatican approved a "miracle" that church officials attributed to Mother Marianne's intercession, Kikukawa said. A tribunal of medical experts, theologians and church officials received supporting evidence for the miracle three years ago, she said.

The approval came rather quickly, she said.

"It wasn't a surprise, but one always has to wait until the action really happens to breathe a sigh of relief and rejoice," Kikuawa said.

"Having this happen just before Christmas is a great gift not only to our congregation but to our church. And especially to the people of Kalaupapa and Hawai'i."

This will be the second beatification to come from the work done on Kalaupapa. Father Damien De Veuster was the resident priest there and his many years on Molokai'i and devotion to the Kalaupapa patients ultimately led to his beatification in 1995.

For two people from the same small place to be candidates for sainthood is both special and amazing, Kikukawa said.

"It is a great thing for the church in Hawai'i," she said.

Mother Marianne was born Barbara Koob in Germany in 1838 and took the name Marianne in 1862 when she joined the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in New York.

She arrived in Hawai'i in 1883 when the Hawaiian government was looking for people to run the Kaka'ako Branch Hospital, which served as a receiving station for Hansen's disease patients.

In 1888, Honolulu banker Charles Bishop presented the Hawaiian government with a donation of $5,000 to establish a home for girls in Kalaupapa.

Hundreds of homeless girls had been sent to the isolated outpost without their families, and Mother Marianne agreed to supervise the home.

She remained at Kalaupapa until she died in 1918 at the age of 80.

In Honolulu at the Third Order of St. Francis Convent, Mother Marianne's devotion to the Kalaupapa patients was warmly remembered today.

"They talk so much about other people who have done things, but she had done it in a very quiet way in a very little place," said Sister Agnes Vera. "And those people needed her just as much. She brought life to them which they didn't have."

Vera said Mother Marianne made dresses for the girls, taught them to sew and started a band.

"She was always there to help them and make life better for them," Vera said. "They didn't feel like they were just a castaway."

The miracle presented to the church occurred about 10 years ago in New York.

"I can just tell you that it was the healing of an adolescent girl who had multiple organ failure," Kikukawa said. "Her condition was critical."

The girl's family prayed to Mother Marianne to render a cure. Even a relative of Mother Marianne was brought to the girl.

"Shortly thereafter, she started to recover," Kikukawa said. "Now she is a young woman of her 20s."

The next official step in the beatification process will come Jan. 24 when the Roman Catholic Church in Hawai'i exhumes Mother Marianne's body from its grave on Moloka'i, Kikuawa said. This has to be done to be sure that Mother Marianne is buried there.

She is buried in a simple wooden coffin at the edge of the lawn of the home where she care for the girls. But after the exhumation, she will be buried at the home of the order in Syracuse, N.Y., Kikukawa said.

"We are taking her home," Kikukawa said. "She always said she would go home."