KALAUPAPA, Moloka'i — The people of Kalaupapa honored newly sainted Damien yesterday by walking in his footsteps in a heavy mist, carrying a banner bearing his likeness.

As they passed the settlement's care home where Hansen's disease patients live, some in the procession yelled out, "Happy St. Damien's day!"

Generations of Hansen's disease patients, clergy and government workers who live in the Kalaupapa settlement have always considered Father Damien a saint.

Yesterday, they could finally say it out loud with all of the official backing of the Catholic Church.

The Rev. Felix Vandebroek, a Belgian-born Catholic priest just like St. Damien, yesterday held a small Mass in his honor, then led 15 state Health Department workers, National Park Service employees, nuns and others to tiny St. Elizabeth chapel, where 19th century nuns were barred from accepting Communion from St. Damien after he was diagnosed with Hansen's disease in 1885.

The chapel was built so the segregated girls, women and nuns of Kalaupapa could worship. It was the same chapel where a nun "saw Damien kneeling in the mud, saying prayers outside the chapel in the rain and in the wind because he did not want to come inside," Vandebroek told those who had gathered. "But we know this is the place where Damien came to pray. He must have found peace and quiet."

Later, Vandebroek and four others drove out to Kalawao, the original Hansen's disease settlement on the colder, wetter, eastern end of the Kalaupapa peninsula, where Damien first ministered to the ill and where his right hand remains buried in a grave next to his church, St. Philomena.

Health Department nurse Charlotte La Croix has come to the site before.

But hours after Damien's canonization in Rome, yesterday's visit to adorn his grave with anthurium was different, La Croix said.

As the rain began to fall harder, La Croix again was filled "with that feeling of reverence," she said. "Today, it's even more special."

The morning began with a special Mass in St. Damien's honor in Vandebroek's church in Kalaupapa, St. Francis Church.

Vandebroek is known throughout the settlement for occasionally being spare with his words.

Yesterday, the slight, 81-year-old priest with a cherubic grin was eloquent in his homage to his fellow Belgian.

When he arrived in Kalaupapa in 1873, St. Damien was under strict instructions from "headquarters" to avoid contact with the Hansen's disease patients, Vandebroek told those who had gathered.

It was an order that St. Damien — stubborn, driven and dedicated to ease the suffering he found here — refused to obey.

"He believed you have to become one of them," Vandebroek said. "Damien in no time knew he was supposed to tell those suffering, 'God cares for you. God loves you.' He did what Jesus did."

As word of St. Damien's work slowly spread around the world, others came to the remote peninsula to see for themselves and became touched by his selflessness, Vandebroek said.

"They came, they saw, they believed," Vandebroek said. "Today we know that what he did was not for his own glory, but for his people. ... He was a man so dear to us. He watched over us. He held us. We ask that he continue to watch over us and continue to guide our people so that they can find happiness and peace in this place."

Vandebroek reminded the federal and state employees attending the Mass why they, too, came to Kalaupapa.

"Go and do the same," he said. "Reach out to others in need. Be kind to them. Show sympathy to those in need."

And then he asked St. Damien to care for the people of Kalaupapa and continue to inspire them, just as he did more than a century ago.

"Protect and bless all who are in attendance," Vandebroek said in his prayer, "all of those who work in this place for the good of others."