Posted on: Saturday, May 7, 2005
FAITH
Mother Marianne answered the call
Advertiser Staff and News Services
With the beatification of Mother Marianne Cope nearing, here are some frequently asked and current questions:
Q. Who was Mother Marianne?
A. Born in 1838 in Germany and moving to New York as a tot, Barbara Koob (later changed to Cope) took the name Marianne when she joined the convent. She later became the head of her order. In 1883, the call went out to Catholic religious people that the nation of Hawai'i needed help with its "national affliction," leprosy, now called Hansen's disease. She came to Hawai'i later that year, setting up hospitals and administering other aid before joining the Catholic efforts at the colony on Moloka'i. Father Damien de Veuster was working on Moloka'i, but he died of the disease not long after Cope's arrival. While she originally expected only to stay weeks in Hawai'i, she spent the rest of her life at Kalaupapa. She died there in 1918.
Q. What's the difference between beatification and sainthood?
A. For the Roman Catholic church, sainthood has several steps. It can take years, even decades, to complete each step. A person can be called "venerable," the first step, when their heroic virtue is determined by the Vatican, first by a committee and then signed by the pope. Then the candidate becomes eligible for beatification (the candidate is called "the blessed"). Beatification requires documentation of a miracle, again approved by the Vatican. After being beatified, the candidate is then eligible for canonization, in which they receive the honorific "Saint." Another miracle is required for that.
Q. How is this beatification different from previous ones?
A. Even before the new pope, Benedict XVI, took office, there had been talk at the Vatican about making the distinction between beatification and canonization greater, having a cardinal oversee beatifications and the pope himself oversee canonizations. However, Pope John Paul II chose to continue to preside over both. Earlier this month, Benedict XVI decided in this case to have the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints oversee the beatification of Mother Marianne.
Q. Is Mother Marianne being beatified alone?
A. No. Another nun, Mother Ascension del Corazon de Jesus, founder of the Dominican Missionaries of the Rosary, a religious order of nuns in Spain, will be beatified at the same ceremony.
Q. Are there other changes?
A. According to a report by the Catholic News Service, at beatification ceremonies the bishop of the diocese where the person dies asks the pope or his representative to declare the saint blessed. At a canonization, the head of the congregation for saints asks in the name of the universal church that the pope proclaim the candidate a saint. It's unclear at this point who will ask, since the Diocese of Honolulu, which covers Moloka'i, where Mother Marianne died, is currently without a bishop. However, Bishop James Moynihan of Syracuse, N.Y., the diocese where Mother Marianne's order is based, will be in Rome for the beatification and is expected to do the honors.
Q. Will she receive a feast day, like other people who have been beatified?
A. Yes, though it will be a national feast day until she's canonized, at which point it becomes a worldwide feast day. (Feast days are dates when the church celebrates the life of a particular saint; the most famous of which is St. Patrick's Day.)
Q. Will the pope be at the ceremonies?
A. It's unclear, but the group with delegations from Hawai'i and New York, the home of her religious order, has a private papal audience scheduled for May 16.
Q. What about Father Damien's sainthood cause? How is that progressing?
When: Tuesday
What: Events include a morning ceremony at the statue of Father Damien de Veuster at the Capitol, as well as a noon Mass at the Cathedral at Our Lady of Peace downtown. Q. Is there anything else new on the Damien front?
A: The feast day for Blessed Damien, known as Damien Day, which is Tuesday, will also be the day the tribunal seals the documents to be returned to the Vatican. The date coincides with the day he landed on Moloka'i. There will be a ceremony in the morning at the Capitol, where Damien's statue is located, as well as noon Mass in Damien's honor at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.
Sources: Advertiser Religion & Ethics Writer Mary Kaye Ritz, Catholic News Service, Associated Press
A. A local tribunal has reopened the case in the miracle that was used for Blessed Damien, who was beatified in Belgium by John Paul II in 1995. While the miracle itself (a woman's tumor miraculously regressed) is not in question, the case was re-examined by a local tribunal because the Vatican wanted to determine whether the woman prayed solely to Damien for intervention. The tribunal has finished its work and the postulator for the cause will take the sealed documents to the Vatican.
Damien Day
