Meli Watanuki definitely believes.

"Every morning we prayed for Father Damien to be a saint," said Watanuki, 75, who has lived at the Kalaupapa settlement on Moloka'i since 1969. "I'm very happy to be going to Rome. It's like a miracle. I do believe in miracles."

Watanuki and seven other Hansen's disease patients from Kalaupapa will travel to Rome in October to witness the canonization of Father Damien, "the leper priest of Moloka'i" who ministered to the sufferers at Kalaupapa when no one else would, then died of the disease himself in 1889.

"I hope to see the pope," Watanuki said yesterday at a news conference at the University of Hawai'i's John A. Burns School of Medicine campus in Kaka'ako. "I'm just really happy."

Damien will become the first person from Hawai'i ever to be honored as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.

During their journey to Rome, the eight patients and their caretakers will make a pilgrimage to the Belgian birthplace of Damien, who was born Joseph De Veuster in 1840.

The other patients who will make the journey to Rome are John Arruda, Elroy Malo, Clarence Kahilihiwa, Ivy Kahilihiwa, Gloria Marks, Barbara Marks and Winnie Harada.

Bishop Larry Silva yesterday announced the details of the canonization journey — and a fundraising dinner July 18 at the Sheraton Waikiki to help pay for the trip and fund an endowment at the medical school for Native Hawaiian students.

Damien, by his example of love and sacrifice, ministered not only to the people of Kalaupapa but "to the whole world," Silva said.

He hopes Damien's example encourages modern society to "reach out with great love to the homeless, to the poor, the suffering, to those who are neglected by others, so that by reaching out to others we can be more like him."

Damien was ordained at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu in 1864. His sainthood was assured in 2008 when Pope Benedict XVI accepted the cure from cancer of Audrey Toguchi of 'Aiea as a miracle.

Toguchi and the church have attributed her cure to the fact that she visited Damien's grave and asked friends and family to pray to Damien for divine intervention.

The sponsors of the trip and fundraising efforts are the Diocese of Honolulu and Ahahui o na Kauka, (Association of Native Hawaiian Physicians).

To be a saint, Silva said, one has to know that "God is love and you have to let yourself fall in love with God, and I think Father Damien did that."